They are not dead : Restoration by the "heat method," of those drowned, or otherwise suffocated / by T.S. Lambert.
- Lambert, T. S. (Thomas Scott), 1819-1897
- Date:
- 1879
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: They are not dead : Restoration by the "heat method," of those drowned, or otherwise suffocated / by T.S. Lambert. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
46/226 page 30
![ed for ten seconds or for ten minutes. Indeed, it is ex- pected. Wliy, tlien, surprising after ten hours ? Oh ! there is such a difference. How ? Mark the facts, AS'hen a second has elapsed, the person has during all that time been utterly breathless, i)^lseless ; his heart beat]ess, his whole body motionless and unconscious. No change has oc- cured except that he has been growing cooler. The same will 'be true of him at the end of ten minutes. Has the coolness as yet produced any changes that are irremedia- ble ? Certainly not, since in some cases he has recovered. That he is breathless, pulseless, his whole body motionless and unconscious, is not fatal ; nor that he has somewhat cooled. In the first particulars there can be no change, nor liability of disaster during any period of time before de- composition, or some structural change, has taken place ; we can only ask if the lowering of his temperature will of it- self, or by the changes it may induce or permit, make re- covery impossible. There is the whole matter in a nut- shell. Now, Dr. B. W. Eichardson, whom it is a pleasure to quote as one of the most intelligent, observing, experi- enced, and, above all, as one of the most judicial of experi- mental physiologists and pathologists, found that living flesh has a neutral reaction, while as soon as it is exposed to the air it shows an acid reaction. But the drowned person is covered from the air by the skin, and by immersion, which seem intended to preserve the person in a restorable con- dition, and as he remains restorable longer in cold than in warm water, it would a^Dpear that the lowering of the tem- perature does not militate against but favors his recovery. If that be so what is there to make us so certain that he cannot recover after even several days submersion in cold water, or in earth, or indeed after being frozen ? Dr. Eich' ardson also says that if when rigor mortis has occurred in an animal if it be frozen when it is thawed the rigor m.oriis](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21062961_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
