6. BY OTHER MODES, NOT INCLUDED IN THE FOREGOING SECTIONS.
We have already stated that if the muscles of respiration be paralysed, the animal can no longer breathe; and it dies in a state of suffocation. There are several mechanical modes by which such a condition may be produced; a person buried in a heap of ruins, although his head should be free, will perish from the pressure of the surrounding rubbish preventing the due action of the respiratory muscles. It was in this way that criminals who obstinately refused to plead, often died under the pressure of the weights that were heaped upon their bodies.[[50]].
There is a mode of suffocation, described by Galen, as being practised by the slaves when brought into the presence of the judges or executioners; it consisted in swallowing their tongue, by which it is said they voluntarily terminated their own existence. Several more modern authors have noticed this incredible mode of suicide, as one that is resorted to by negroes: now to confute such an idea, we have only to shew the attachment of the muscles of this part, and the motions which they permit; equally absurd is it to suppose with other physiologists, that persons can occasion suffocation by a voluntary suspension of their breathing; for if such an attempt were even made, the effort would be ended when self-possession was once lost, for then the impulse of nature must instantly triumph over any struggle to oppose it. We are not, however, prepared to say that such an attempt might not, in certain cases, occasion such a cerebral congestion as to produce apoplexy.
The last cause of suffocation which we have to mention is mechanical obstruction, from the entrance of foreign bodies into the aperture of the glottis; instances of this kind are too numerous and familiar to require many observations: it is thus that Anacreon is said to have perished from a grape-seed; Gilbert, the poet, terminated his existence in a similar manner; he was a man of great appetite, and in the midst of a festival went into a neighbouring room, but did not return to the great surprise of his convivial companions. He was found stretched on a couch without any signs of life. The assistance administered by his kind but uninformed friends was useless; on opening the body a small piece of mutton was found, that had stopped at the entrance of the larynx, and completely prevented the passage of air into this organ. In Oct. 1821, two inquisitions were taken at Mildenhall, before the Coroner of Bury St. Edmonds in Suffolk; in the one case it appeared that John Harris had eaten some honey, from the honey-comb, and that a bee, having been concealed in it, entered the glottis, and occasioned almost immediate death by suffocation; the other case was that of an infant, Mary Bacon, who fell with her face upon a quantity of slacked lime, when a particle of it getting into the wind-pipe, produced inflammation of the lungs, and sloughing of the trachea, of which she died. We have no doubt but that persons, during the state of intoxication, or that of a spasmodic paroxysm, have often perished from suffocation, when the death has been attributed to other causes; if the stomach should reject its contents during a state of insensibility[[51]], such an occurrence is by no means unlikely. We have lately received the history of a case of this description, which occurred in the St. James’s workhouse, and fell under the particular notice of Mr. Alcock. The patient was seized after a hearty meal of pork with an epileptic fit, during which he died; when upon opening the trachea, it was found to contain a quantity of animal matter resembling the pork upon which he had recently dined.