Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2 / The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author

by Benjamin Rush

LECTURE II.

Gentlemen,

The stimuli which have been enumerated, when they act collectively, and within certain bounds, produce a healthy waking state. But they do not always act collectively, nor in the determined and regular manner that has been described. There is, in many states of the system, a deficiency of some stimuli, and, in some of its states, an apparent absence of them all. To account for the continuance of animal life under such circumstances, two things must be premised, before we proceed to take notice of the diminution or absence of the stimuli which support it.

1. The healthy actions of the body in the waking state consist in a proper degree of what has been called excitability and excitement. The former is the medium on which stimuli act in producing the latter. In an exact proportion, and a due relation of both, diffused uniformly throughout every part of the body, consists good health. Disease is the reverse of this. It depends in part upon a disproportion between excitement and excitability, and in a partial distribution of each of them. In thus distinguishing the different states of excitement and excitability in health and sickness, you see I dissent from Dr. Brown, who supposes them to be (though disproportioned to each other) equably diffused in the morbid, as well as the healthy state of the body.

2. It is a law of the system, that the absence of one natural stimulus is generally supplied by the increased action of others. This is more certainly the case where a natural stimulus is abstracted suddenly; for the excitability is thereby so instantly formed and accumulated, as to furnish a highly sensible and moveable surface for the remaining stimuli to act upon. Many proofs might be adduced in support of this proposition. The reduction of the excitement of the blood-vessels, by means of cold, prepares the way for a full meal, or a warm bed, to excite in them the morbid actions which take place in a pleurisy or a rheumatism. A horse in a cold stable eats more than in a warm one, and thus counteracts the debility which would otherwise be induced upon his system, by the abstraction of the stimulus of warm air.

These two propositions being admitted, I proceed next to inquire into the different degrees and states of animal life. The first departure from its ordinary and perfect state which strikes us, is in

I. Sleep. This is either natural or artificial. Natural sleep is induced by a diminution of the excitement and excitability of the system, by the continued application of the stimuli which act upon the body in its waking state. When these stimuli act in a determined degree, that is, when the same number of stimuli act with the same force, and for the same time, upon the system, sleep will be brought on at the same hour every night. But when they act with uncommon force, or for an unusual time, it is brought on at an earlier hour. Thus a long walk or ride, by persons accustomed to a sedentary life, unusual exercise of the understanding, the action of strong passions or emotions, and the continual application of unusual sounds seldom fail of inducing premature sleep. It is recorded of pope Ganganelli, that he slept more soundly, and longer than usual, the night after he was raised to the papal chair. The effects of unusual sounds in bringing on premature sleep, is further demonstrated by that constant inclination to retire to bed at an early hour, which country people discover the first and second days they spend in a city, exposed from morning till night to the noise of hammers, files, and looms, or of drays, carts, waggons, and coaches, rattling over pavements of stone. Sleep is further hastened by the absence of light, the cessation of sounds and labour, and the recumbent posture of the body on a soft bed.

Artificial sleep may be induced at any time by certain stimulating substances, particularly by opium. They act by carrying the system beyond the healthy grade of excitement, to a degree of indirect debility, which Dr. Brown has happily called the sleeping point. The same point may be induced in the system at any time by the artificial abstraction of the usual stimuli of life. For example, let a person shut himself up at mid-day in a dark room, remote from noise of all kinds, let him lie down upon his back upon a soft bed in a temperate state of the atmosphere, and let him cease to think upon interesting subjects, or let him think only upon one subject, and he will soon fall asleep. Dr. Boerhaave relates an instance of a Dutch physician, who, having persuaded himself that waking was a violent state, and sleep the only natural one of the system, contrived, by abstracting every kind of stimulus in the manner that has been mentioned, to sleep away whole days and nights, until at length he impaired his understanding, and finally perished in a public hospital in a state of idiotism.

In thus anticipating a view of the cause of sleep, I have said nothing of the effects of diseases of the brain in inducing it. These belong to another part of our course. The short explanation I have given of its cause was necessary in order to render the history of animal life, in that state of the system, more intelligible.

At the usual hour of sleep there is an abstraction of the stimuli of light, sound, and muscular motion. The stimuli which remain, and act with an increased force upon the body in sleep, are

1. The heat which is discharged from the body, and confined by means of bed-clothes. It is most perceptible when exhaled from a bed-fellow. Heat obtained in this way has sometimes been employed to restore declining life to the bodies of old people. Witness the damsel who lay for this purpose in the bosom of the king of Israel. The advantage of this external heat will appear further, when we consider how impracticable or imperfect sleep is, when we lie under too light covering in cold weather.

2. The air which is applied to the lungs during sleep probably acts with more force than in the waking state. I am disposed to believe that more air is phlogisticated in sleep than at any other time, for the smell of a close room in which a person has slept one night, we know, is much more disagreeable than that of a room, under equal circumstances, in which half a dozen people have sat for the same number of hours in the day time. The action of decomposed air on the lungs and heart was spoken of in a former lecture. An increase in its quantity must necessarily have a powerful influence upon animal life during the sleeping state.

3. Respiration is performed with a greater extension and contraction of the muscles of the breast in sleep than in the waking state; and this cannot fail of increasing the impetus of the blood in its passage through the heart and blood-vessels. The increase of the fulness and force of the pulse in sleep, is probably owing in part to the action of respiration upon it. In another place I hope to elevate the rank of the blood-vessels in the animal economy, by showing that they are the fountains of power in the body. They derive this pre-eminence from the protection and support they afford to every part of the system. They are the perpetual centineals of health and life; for they never partake in the repose which is enjoyed by the muscles and nerves. During sleep, their sensibility seems to be converted into contractility, by which means their muscular fibres are more easily moved by the blood than in the waking state. The diminution of sensibility in sleep is proved by many facts to be mentioned hereafter; and the change of sensibility into contractility will appear, when we come to consider the state of animal life in infancy and old age.

4. Aliment in the stomach acts more powerfully in sleep than in the waking state. This is evident from digestion going on more rapidly when we are awake than when we sleep. The more slow the digestion, the greater is the stimulus of the aliment in the stomach. Of this we have many proofs in daily life. Labourers object to milk as a breakfast, because it digests too soon; and often call for food in a morning, which they can feel all day in their stomachs. Sausages, fat pork, and onions are generally preferred by them for this purpose. A moderate supper is favourable to easy and sound sleep; and the want of it, in persons who are accustomed to that meal, is often followed by a restless night. The absence of its stimulus is probably supplied by a full gall-bladder (which always attends an empty stomach) in persons who are not in the habit of eating suppers.

5. The stimulus of the urine, accumulated in the bladder during sleep, has a perceptible influence upon animal life. It is often so considerable as to interrupt sleep; and it is one of the causes of our waking at a regular hour in the morning. It is moreover a frequent cause of the activity of the understanding and passions in dreams; and hence we dream more in our morning slumbers, when the bladder is full, than we do in the beginning or middle of the night.

6. The fæces exert a constant stimulus upon the bowels in sleep. This is so considerable as to render it less profound when they have been accumulated for two or three days, or when they have been deposited in the extremity of the alimentary canal.

7. The partial and irregular exercises of the understanding and passions in dreams have an occasional influence in promoting life. They occur only where there is a deficiency of other stimuli. Such is the force with which the mind acts upon the body in dreams, that Dr. Brambilla, physician to the emperor of Germany, informs us, that he has seen instances of wounds in soldiers being inflamed, and putting on a gangrenous appearance in consequence of the commotions excited in their bodies by irritating dreams[92]. The stimulating passions act through the medium of the will; and the exercises of this faculty of the mind sometimes extend so far as to produce actions in the muscles of the limbs, and occasionally in the whole body, as we see in persons who walk in their sleep. The stimulus of lust often awakens us with pleasure or pain, according as we are disposed to respect or disobey the precepts of our Maker. The angry and revengeful passions often deliver us, in like manner, from the imaginary guilt of murder. Even the debilitating passions of grief and fear produce an indirect operation upon the system that is favourable to life in sleep, for they excite that distressing disease called the night mare, which prompts us to speak, or halloo, and by thus invigorating respiration, overcomes the languid circulation of the blood in the heart and brain. Do not complain then, gentlemen, when you are bestrode by this midnight hag. She is kindly sent to prevent your sudden death. Persons who go to bed in good health, and are found dead the succeeding morning, are said most commonly to die of this disease.

I proceed now to inquire into the state of animal life in its different stages. I pass over for the present its history in generation. It will be sufficient only to remark in this place, that its first motion is produced by the stimulus of the male seed upon the female ovum. This opinion is not originally mine. You will find it in Dr. Haller[93]. The pungent taste which Mr. John Hunter discovered in the male seed renders it peculiarly fit for this purpose. No sooner is the female ovum thus set in motion, and the fœtus formed, than its capacity of life is supported,

1. By the stimulus of the heat which it derives from its connection with its mother in the womb.

2. By the stimulus of its own circulating blood.

3. By its constant motion in the womb after the third month of pregnancy. The absence of this motion for a few days is always a sign of the indisposition or death of a fœtus. Considering how early a child is accustomed to it, it is strange that a cradle should ever have been denied to it after it comes into the world.

II. In infants there is an absence of many of the stimuli which support life. Their excretions are in a great measure deficient in acrimony, and their mental faculties are too weak to exert much influence upon their bodies. But the absence of stimulus from those causes is amply supplied

1. By the very great excitability of their systems to those of light, sound, heat, and air. So powerfully do light and sound act upon them, that the Author of nature has kindly defended their eyes and ears from an excess of their impressions by imperfect vision and hearing, for several weeks after birth. The capacity of infants to be acted upon by moderate degrees of heat is evident from their suffering less from cold than grown people. This is so much the case, that we read, in Mr. Umfreville's account of Hudson's Bay, of a child that was found alive upon the back of its mother after she was frozen to death. I before hinted at the action of the air upon the bodies of new-born infants in producing the red colour of their skins. It is highly probable (from a fact formerly mentioned) that the first impression of the atmosphere which produces this redness is accompanied with pain, and this we know is a stimulus of a very active nature. By a kind law of sensation, impressions, that were originally painful, become pleasurable by repetition or duration. This is remarkably evident in the impression now under consideration, and hence we find infants at a certain age discover signs of an increase of life by their delightful gestures, when they are carried into the open air. Recollect further, gentlemen, what was said formerly of excitability predominating over sensibility in infants. We see it daily, not only in their patience of cold, but in the short time in which they cease to complain of the injuries they meet with from falls, cuts, and even severe surgical operations.

2. Animal life is supported in infants by their sucking, or feeding, nearly every hour in the day and night when they are awake. I explained formerly the manner in which food stimulated the system. The action of sucking supplies, by the muscles employed in it, the stimulus of mastication.

3. Laughing and crying, which are universal in infancy, have a considerable influence in promoting animal life, by their action upon respiration, and the circulation of the blood. Laughing exists under all circumstances, independently of education or imitation. The child of the negro slave, born only to inherit the toils and misery of its parents, receives its master with a smile every time he enters his kitchen or a negro-quarter. But laughing exists in infancy under circumstances still more unfavourable to it; an instance of which is related by Mr. Bruce. After a journey of several hundred miles across the sands of Nubia, he came to a spring of water shaded by a few scrubby trees. Here he intended to have rested during the night, but he had not slept long before he was awakened by a noise which he perceived was made by a solitary Arab, equally fatigued and half famished with himself, who was preparing to murder and plunder him. Mr. Bruce rushed upon him, and made him his prisoner. The next morning he was joined by a half-starved female companion, with an infant of six months old in her arms. In passing by this child, Mr. Bruce says, it laughed and crowed in his face, and attempted to leap upon him. From this fact it would seem as if laughing was not only characteristic of our species, but that it was early and intimately connected with human life. The child of these Arabs had probably never seen a smile upon the faces of its ferocious parents, and perhaps had never (before the sight of Mr. Bruce) beheld any other human creature.

Crying has a considerable influence upon health and life in children. I have seen so many instances of its salutary effects, that I have satisfied myself it is as possible for a child to “cry and be fat,” as it is to “laugh and be fat.”

4. As children advance in life, the constancy of their appetites for food, and their disposition to laugh and cry, lessen, but the diminution of these stimuli is supplied by exercise. The limbs[94] and tongues of children are always in motion. They continue likewise to eat oftener than adults. A crust of bread is commonly the last thing they ask for at night, and the first thing they call for in the morning. It is now they begin to feel the energy of their mental faculties. This stimulus is assisted in its force by the disposition to prattle, which is so universal among children. This habit of converting their ideas into words as fast as they rise, follows them to their beds, where we often hear them talk themselves to sleep in a whisper, or to use less correct, but more striking terms, by thinking aloud.

5. Dreams act at an early period upon the bodies of children. Their smiles, startings, and occasional screams in their sleep appear to arise from them. After the third or fourth year of their lives, they sometimes confound them with things that are real. From observing the effects of this mistake upon the memory, a sensible woman whom I once knew, forbad her children to tell their dreams, lest they should contract habits of lying, by confounding imaginary with real events.

6. New objects, whether natural or artificial, are never seen by children without emotions of pleasure which act upon their capacity of life. The effects of novelty upon the tender bodies of children may easily be conceived, by its friendly influence upon the health of invalids who visit foreign countries, and who pass months or years in a constant succession of new and agreeable impressions.

III. From the combination of all the stimuli that have been enumerated, human life is generally in excess from fifteen to thirty-five. It is during this period the passions blow a perpetual storm. The most predominating of them is the love of pleasure. No sooner does the system become insensible to this stimulus, than ambition succeeds it in,

IV. The middle stage of life. Here we behold man in his most perfect physical state. The stimuli which now act upon him are so far regulated by prudence, that they are seldom excessive in their force. The habits of order the system acquires in this period, continue to produce good health for many years afterwards; and hence bills of mortality prove that fewer persons die between forty and fifty-seven, than in any other seventeen years of human life.

V. In old age, the senses of seeing, hearing, and touch are impaired. The venereal appetite is weakened, or entirely extinguished. The pulse becomes slow, and subject to frequent intermissions, from a decay in the force of the blood-vessels. Exercise becomes impracticable, or irksome, and the operations of the understanding are performed with languor and difficulty. In this shattered and declining state of the system, the absence and diminution of all the stimuli which have been mentioned are supplied,

1. By an increase in the quantity, and by the peculiar quality of the food which is taken by old people. They generally eat twice as much as persons in middle life, and they bear with pain the usual intervals between meals. They moreover prefer that kind of food which is savoury and stimulating. The stomach of the celebrated Parr, who died in the one hundred and fiftieth year of his age, was found full of strong, nourishing aliment.

2. By the stimulus of the fæces, which are frequently retained for five or six days in the bowels of old people.

3. By the stimulus of fluids rendered preternaturally acrid by age. The urine, sweat, and even the tears of old people, possess a peculiar acrimony. Their blood likewise loses part of the mildness which is natural to that fluid; and hence the difficulty with which sores heal in old people; and hence too the reason why cancers are more common in the decline, than in any other period of human life.

4. By the uncommon activity of certain passions. These are either good or evil. To the former belong an increased vigour in the operations of those passions which have for their objects the Divine Being, or the whole family of mankind, or their own offspring, particularly their grand-children. To the latter passions belong malice, a hatred of the manners and fashions of the rising generation, and, above all, avarice. This passion knows no holidays. Its stimulus is constant, though varied daily by the numerous means which it has discovered of increasing, securing, and perpetuating property. It has been observed that weak mental impressions produce much greater effects in old people than in persons in middle life. A trifling indisposition in a grand-child, an inadvertent act of unkindness from a friend, or the fear of losing a few shillings, have, in many instances, produced in them a degree of wakefulness that has continued for two or three nights. It is to this highly excitable state of the system that Solomon probably alludes, when he describes the grasshopper as burdensome to old people.

5. By the passion for talking, which is so common, as to be one of the characteristics of old age. I mentioned formerly the influence of this stimulus upon animal life. Perhaps it is more necessary in the female constitution than in the male; for it has long ago been remarked, that women who are very taciturn, are generally unhealthy.

6. By their wearing warmer clothes, and preferring warmer rooms, than in the former periods of their lives. This practice is so uniform, that it would not be difficult, in many cases, to tell a man's age by his dress, or by finding out at what degree of heat he found himself comfortable in a close room.

7. By dreams. These are universal among old people. They arise from their short and imperfect sleep.

8. It has been often said, that “We are once men, and twice children.” In speaking of the state of animal life in infancy, I remarked that the contractility of the animal fibres predominated over their sensibility in that stage of life. The same thing takes place in old people, and it is in consequence of the return of this infantile state of the system, that all the stimuli which have been mentioned act upon them with much more force than in middle life. This sameness, in the predominance of excitability over sensibility in children and old people, will account for the similarity of their habits with respect to eating, sleep, exercise, and the use of fermented and distilled liquors. It is from the increase of excitability in old people, that so small a quantity of strong drink intoxicates them; and it is from an ignorance of this change in their constitutions, that many of them become drunkards, after passing the early and middle stages of life with sober characters.

Life is continued in a less imperfect state in old age in women than in men. The former sew, and knit, and spin, after they lose the use of their ears and eyes; whereas the latter, after losing the use of those senses, frequently pass the evening of their lives in a torpid state in a chimney corner. It is from the influence of moderate and gently stimulating employments, upon the female constitution, that more women live to be old than men, and that they rarely survive their usefulness in domestic life.

Hitherto the principles I am endeavouring to establish have been applied to explain the cause of life in its more common forms. Let us next inquire, how far they will enable us to explain its continuance in certain morbid states of the body, in which there is a diminution of some, and an apparent abstraction of all the stimuli, which have been supposed to produce animal life.

I. We observe some people to be blind, or deaf and dumb from their birth. The same defects of sight, hearing, and speech, are sometimes brought on by diseases. Here animal life is deprived of all those numerous stimuli, which arise from light, colours, sounds, and speech. But the absence of these stimuli is supplied,

1. By increased sensibility and excitability in their remaining senses. The ears, the nose, and the fingers, afford a surface for impressions in blind people, which frequently overbalances the loss of their eye-sight. There are two blind young men, brothers, in this city, of the name of Dutton, who can tell when they approach a post in walking across a street, by a peculiar sound which the ground under their feet emits in the neighbourhood of the post. Their sense of hearing is still more exquisite to sounds of another kind. They can tell the names of a number of tame pigeons, with which they amuse themselves in a little garden, by only hearing them fly over their heads. The celebrated blind philosopher, Dr. Moyse, can distinguish a black dress on his friends, by its smell; and we read of many instances of blind persons who have been able to perceive colours by rubbing their fingers upon them. One of these persons, mentioned by Mr. Boyle, has left upon record an account of the specific quality of each colour as it affected his sense of touch. He says black imparted the most, and blue the least perceptible sense of asperity to his fingers.

2. By an increase of vigour in the exercises of the mental faculties. The poems of Homer, Milton, and Blacklock, and the attainments of Sanderson in mathematical knowledge, all discover how much the energy of the mind is increased by the absence of impressions upon the organs of vision.

II. We sometimes behold life in idiots, in whom there is not only an absence of the stimuli of the understanding and passions, but frequently, from the weakness of their bodies, a deficiency of the loco-motive powers. Here an inordinate appetite for food, or venereal pleasures, or a constant habit of laughing, or talking, or playing with their hands and feet, supply the place of the stimulating operations of the mind, and of general bodily exercise. Of the inordinate force of the venereal appetite in idiots we have many proofs. The cretins are much addicted to venery; and Dr. Michaelis tells us that the idiot whom he saw at the Passaic falls in New-Jersey, who had passed six and twenty years in a cradle, acknowledged that he had venereal desires, and wished to be married, for, the doctor adds, he had a sense of religion upon his fragment of mind, and of course did not wish to gratify that appetite in an unlawful manner.

III. How is animal life supported in persons who pass many days, and even weeks without food, and in some instances without drinks? Long fasting is usually the effect of disease, of necessity, or of a principle of religion. When it arises from the first cause, the actions of life are kept up by the stimulus of disease[95]. The absence of food when accidental, or submitted to as a means of producing moral happiness, is supplied,

1. By the stimulus of a full gall bladder. This state of the receptacle of bile has generally been found to accompany an empty stomach. The bile is sometimes absorbed, and imparts a yellow colour to the skin of persons who suffer or die of famine.

2. By increased acrimony in all the secretions and excretions of the body. The saliva becomes so acrid by long fasting, as to excoriate the gums, and the breath acquires not only a fœtor, but a pungency so active, as to draw tears from the eyes of persons who are exposed to it.

3. By increased sensibility and excitability in the sense of touch. The blind man mentioned by Mr. Boyle, who could distinguish colours by his fingers, possessed this talent only after fasting. Even a draught of any kind of liquor deprived him of it. I have taken notice, in my account of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, in the year 1793, of the effects of a diet bordering upon fasting for six weeks, in producing a quickness and correctness in my perceptions of the state of the pulse, which I had never experienced before.

4. By an increase of activity in the understanding and passions. Gamesters often improve the exercises of their minds, when they are about to play for a large sum of money, by living for a day or two upon roasted apples and cold water. Where the passions are excited into preternatural action, the absence of the stimulus of food is scarcely felt. I shall hereafter mention the influence of the desire of life upon its preservation, under all circumstances. It acts with peculiar force when fasting is accidental. But when it is submitted to as a religious duty, it is accompanied by sentiments and feelings which more than balance the abstraction of aliment. The body of Moses was sustained, probably without a miracle, during an abstinence of forty days and forty nights, by the pleasure he derived from conversing with his Maker “face to face, as a man speaking with his friend[96].”

I remarked formerly, that the veins discover no deficiency of blood in persons who die of famine. Death from this cause seems to be less the effect of the want of food, than of the combined and excessive operation of the stimuli, which supply its place in the system.

IV. We come now to a difficult inquiry, and that is, how is life supported during the total abstraction of external and internal stimuli which takes place in asphyxia, or in apparent death, from all its numerous causes?

I took notice, in a former lecture, that ordinary life consisted in the excitement and excitability of the different parts of the body, and that they were occasionally changed into each other. In apparent death from violent emotions of the mind, from the sudden impression of miasmata, or from drowning, there is a loss of excitement; but the excitability of the system remains for minutes, and, in some instances, for hours afterwards unimpaired, provided the accident which produced the loss of excitement has not been attended with such exertions as are calculated to waste it. If, for example, a person should fall suddenly into the water, without bruising his body, and sink before his fears or exertions had time to dissipate his excitability; his recovery from apparent death might be effected by the gentle action of heat or frictions upon his body, so as to convert his accumulated excitability gradually into excitement. The same condition of the system takes place when apparent death occurs from freezing, and a recovery is accomplished by the same gentle application of stimuli, provided the organization of the body be not injured, or its excitability wasted, by violent exertions previously to its freezing. This excitability is the vehicle of motion, and motion, when continued long enough, produces sensation, which is soon followed by thought; and in these, I said formerly, consists perfect life in the human body.

For this explanation of the manner in which life is suspended and revived, in persons apparently dead from cold, I am indebted to Mr. John Hunter, who supposes, if it were possible for the body to be suddenly frozen, by an instantaneous abstraction of its heat, life might be continued for many years in a suspended state, and revived at pleasure, provided the body were preserved constantly in a temperature barely sufficient to prevent re-animation, and never so great as to endanger the destruction of any organic part. The resuscitation of insects, that have been in a torpid state for months, and perhaps years, in substances that have preserved their organization, should at least defend this bold proposition from being treated as chimerical. The effusions even of the imagination of such men as Mr. Hunter, are entitled to respect. They often become the germs of future discoveries.

In that state of suspended animation which occurs in acute diseases, and which has sometimes been denominated a trance, the system is nearly in the same excitable state that it is in apparent death from drowning and freezing. Resuscitation, in these cases, is not the effect, as in those which have been mentioned, of artificial applications made to the body for that purpose. It appears to be spontaneous; but it is produced by impressions made upon the ears, and by the operations of the mind in dreams. Of the actions of these stimuli upon the body in its apparently lifeless state, I have satisfied myself by many facts. I once attended a citizen of Philadelphia, who died of a pulmonary disease, in the 80th year of his age. A few days before his death, he begged that he might not be interred until one week after the usual signs of life had left his body, and gave as a reason for this request, that he had, when a young man, died to all appearance of the yellow fever, in one of the West-India islands. In this situation he distinctly heard the persons who attended him, fix upon the time and place of burying him. The horror of being put under ground alive, produced such distressing emotions in his mind, as to diffuse motion throughout his body, and finally excited in him all the usual functions of life. In Dr. Creighton's essay upon mental derangement, there is a history of a case nearly of a similar nature. A young lady (says the doctor), an attendant on the princess of——, after having been confined to her bed for a great length of time, with a violent nervous disorder, was at last, to all appearance, deprived of life. Her lips were quite pale, her face resembled the countenance of a dead person, and her body grew cold. She was removed from the room in which she died, was laid in a coffin, and the day for her funeral was fixed on. The day arrived, and according to the custom of the country, funeral songs and hymns were sung before the door. Just as the people were about to nail on the lid of the coffin, a kind of perspiration was observed on the surface of her body. She recovered. The following is the account she gave of her sensations: she said, “It seemed to her as if in a dream, that she was really dead; yet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her. She distinctly heard her friends speaking and lamenting her death at the side of her coffin. She felt them pull on the dead clothes, and lay her in it. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which she could not describe. She tried to cry out, but her mind was without power, and could not act on her body. She had the contradictory feeling as if she were in her own body, and not in it, at the same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm or open her eyes, as to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was at its utmost height when the funeral hymns began to be sung, and when the lid of the coffin was about to be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the first which gave activity to her mind, and enabled it to operate on her corporeal frame.”

Where the ears lose their capacity of being acted upon by stimuli, the mind, by its operations in dreams, becomes a source of impressions which again sets the wheels of life in motion. There is an account published by Dr. Arnold, in his observations upon insanity[97], of a certain John Engelbreght, a German, who was believed to be dead, and who was evidently resuscitated by the exercises of his mind upon subjects which were of a delightful or stimulating nature. This history shall be taken from Mr. Engelbreght's words. “It was on Thursday noon (says he), about twelve o'clock, when I perceived that death was making his approaches upon me from the lower parts upwards, insomuch that my whole body became stiff. I had no feeling left in my hands and feet, neither in any other part of my whole body, nor was I at last able to speak or see, for my mouth now becoming very stiff, I was no longer able to open it, nor did I feel it any longer. My eyes also broke in my head in such a manner that I distinctly felt it. For all that, I understood what they said, when they were praying by me, and I distinctly heard them say, feel his legs, how stiff and cold they have become. This I heard distinctly, but I had no perception of their touch. I heard the watchman cry 11 o'clock, but at 12 o'clock my hearing left me.” After relating his passage from the body to heaven with the velocity of an arrow shot from a cross bow, he proceeds, and says, that as he was twelve hours in dying, so he was twelve hours in returning to life. “As I died (says he) from beneath upwards, so I revived again the contrary way, from above to beneath, or from top to toe. Being conveyed back from the heavenly glory, I began to hear something of what they were praying for me, in the same room with me. Thus was my hearing the first sense I recovered. After this I began to have a perception of my eyes, so that, by little and little, my whole body became strong and sprightly, and no sooner did I get a feeling of my legs and feet, than I arose and stood firm upon them with a firmness I had never enjoyed before. The heavenly joy I had experienced, invigorated me to such a degree, that people were astonished at my rapid, and almost instantaneous recovery.”

The explanation I have given of the cause of resuscitation in this man will serve to refute a belief in a supposed migration of the soul from the body, in cases of apparent death. The imagination, it is true, usually conducts the whole mind to the abodes of happy or miserable spirits, but it acts here in the same way that it does when it transports it, in common dreams, to numerous and distant parts of the world.

There is nothing supernatural in Mr. Engelbreght being invigorated by his supposed flight to heaven. Pleasant dreams always stimulate and strengthen the body, while dreams which are accompanied with distress or labour debilitate and fatigue it.