Death and sudden death / by P. Brouardel. Translated by F. Lucas Benham.

  • Paul Brouardel
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Death and sudden death / by P. Brouardel. Translated by F. Lucas Benham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    side, and let an abler man attempt it;' and at the same instant gave him a slight blow on the stomach, when the poor fellow dropped down and expired. His bod}', upon being opened, showed no marks of violence.] What happens in such a case ? It used to be said that death took place from syncope, by reflex action upon the heart; nowadays, since the works of Brown-Sequard have been published, we call it death b}' * inhibition.' Instead of a reflex movement, there is produced, on the contrary, an arrest of one of the functions which was in action at the time the violence was suffered. What are the functions which are always in operation in the human body ? They are those of circulation and respiration ; and these are the ones which are arrested. It has been observed that every time that the action of the heart has been stopped after a blow on the epigastric region, the process of digestion was going on. I have already spoken to you of M. Mirenowitch's experiments on frogs ; I shall not recapitulate them ; but remember that there exists an intimate relation between the stomach and the heart, by means, no doubt, of filaments of the pneumo- gastric. Next to the epigastrium must be placed the hypogastric region; a kick in the lower part of the abdomen may induce sudden death. Records of sudden death after violence, even though this be sHght, applied to the laryngeal region, are rare. Never- theless, such cases exist. You remember a case which I narrated to you, while we were studying the ' moment of death,' of what befell a certain priest (p. 22), who was dismissed for his misconduct, and accused of having killed his mistress, just as she was packing up her trunk. The priest maintained that he had only clasped his quondam mistress's neck, without using any force, and only in fun, and that she dropped dead immedi- ately. The medical jurists of the time did not venture to assert or deny the possibility of such a fact. I mentioned to you also that, in consequence of the feeling
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