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.
LECTURE III.
Gentlemen,
Let us next take a view of the state of animal life in the different inhabitants of our globe, as varied by the circumstances of civilization, diet, situation, and climate.
I. In the Indians of the northern latitudes of America there is often a defect of the stimulus of aliment, and of the understanding and passions. Their vacant countenances, and their long and disgusting taciturnity, are the effects of the want of action in their brains from a deficiency of ideas; and their tranquillity under all the common circumstances of irritation, pleasure, or grief, are the result of an absence of passion; for they hold it to be disgraceful to show any outward signs of anger, joy, or even of domestic affection. This account of the Indian character, I know, is contrary to that which is given of it by Rousseau, and several other writers, who have attempted to prove that man may become perfect and happy without the aids of civilization and religion. This opinion is contradicted by the experience of all ages, and is rendered ridiculous by the facts which are well ascertained in the history of the customs and habits of our American savages. In a cold climate they are the most miserable beings upon the face of the earth. The greatest part of their time is spent in sleep, or under the alternate influence of hunger and gluttony. They moreover indulge in vices which are alike contrary to moral and physical happiness. It is in consequence of these habits that they discover so early the marks of old age, and that so few of them are long-lived. The absence and diminution of many of the stimuli of life in these people is supplied in part by the violent exertions with which they hunt and carry on war, and by the extravagant manner with which they afterwards celebrate their exploits, in their savage dances and songs.