Preservative plan; or, hints for the preservation of persons exposed to those accidents which suddenly suspend or extingui[s]h vital action, and by which many valuable lives are prematurely lost to the community / by A. Fothergill.

  • Anthony Fothergill
Date:
1798
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preservative plan; or, hints for the preservation of persons exposed to those accidents which suddenly suspend or extingui[s]h vital action, and by which many valuable lives are prematurely lost to the community / by A. Fothergill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    - [ 4^ ] , To prevent, therefore, the femblance of death being ever again miftaken for the reality, nothing more is required, after fuitable means have been tried in vain, than to wait till incipient putrefadion, the only certain teft of the entire abolition of life, appears, and from which, under proper reftriftion, no danger can poffibly arife to the living. 1' he firft ftage ofputrefcency, then, is diftinguilhed by an unduofity of the humours, which, exuding through the pores, forms a perceptible clamminefs upon the iurface:of the body; while the vapour that exhales is carbonic acid gas, accompanied with a faintilh or flight cadaverous odour, which marks with precifion the point of time for interment. Whereas, in the fecond ftage, the vapour that emanates, is manifeftly alcalefcent, joined to a highly putrid and offenfive odour, which alone can ^ prove noxious to the attendants. The putrid ' exhalations from living bodies, in cafes of gangrene and fphacelus, proceeding from vital motion and heat, ceafe after death as foon as the body is cold, and therefore the, two cafes are diftind, and cannot eafily be miftaken. , o • • ' The late difeovery of nervous ekaricity, (mentioned in,my Inquiry,) as it exhibits the power of renewing the loft influence of the nerves over their refpeftive mufcles, by certain metaUic conduftors, it feems to bid fair towards affording us a teft of latent irritability, and, confequently.