A man may also, in the very act of drowning, swallow a prodigious quantity of water; not only filling his stomach and intestines; but thence forcibly infuse the water into the lacteals, thereby overload them, and force it into the blood vessels that they burst. The great quantity of cold water will also be apt to chill the stomach and intestines; thereby destroy the sensibility, and prevent them from performing the peristaltic motion; and by the universal consent, destroy the whole nervous system, which is the spring of life, that promotes the blood to circulation, and consequently stops the animal motion, and life itself.
But the most common way of drowning is by suffocation; namely, a sudden constriction of the respirative organs; whereby the supply of the air is cut off, and consequently the circulation of the blood must stop. This is verified by the frequent instances we have of people drowned, who have scarce any water, either in their bellies or in their lungs.
To understand this properly, we must first observe, that a continual supply of fresh air is requisite for the circulation of the blood; partly and principally for its motion, and partly from the nourishment the blood actually receives from the air. In the next place, we must also consider, that the lungs, appropriated barely for respiration, are so very delicate in the irritability throughout the larynx, aspera, bronchea, and vesicles themselves, that the least heterogeneous particle stimulates them to a convulsive expulsion, of what seems obnoxious to them, and thence excites a cough. But, when the parts are too irritating, the lungs are excited to a universal constriction, and occasions strangling. This we find is the case when in drinking or swallowing our aliment, that the least morsel happens by mischance coming the wrong way (as it is called) that is, into the larynx, occasions a heavy cough, or even a suffocation; to obviate which, nature has formed the epiglottis in the larynx, like a flap, that opens in respiration, but is always shut in the act of deglutition, except by some mischance or other, that it becomes lame, and unable to do its office.
These circumstances considered, we shall not only be able to account for the act of drowning, but discover the principles that furnishes us with probabilities of restoring life again.
I have mentioned three kinds of drowning that at present occurs to my memory; and unless that some blood vessels, either in the lungs or in the brains, or in some other principal viscera are burst; or, that the lungs are so much filled with water, as to be unable to recover their respirative functions again, (which is seldom the case) or, that the whole nervous system has received a universal paralytic shock by the chill of the Water in the stomach, so as to be robbed of its irritability, either way of drowning is recoverable. For the whole mystery consists, in setting the animal automaton or clock-work in motion, again; to stimulate the nerves to their sensation; to set the heart a pumping; and the lungs, in order to push forward the fluids, in respiration. I could say much on the subject; but philosophy aside, let us endeavour to recover the man to life again.
The Method to recover a drowned Person.
Three things are to be the intention to restore life in a person taken up for drowned.
1. To liquify the fluids. For the moment the circulation of the fluids is stopt, the blood and lymph congeals; and after this, putrefaction gradually commences.
2. To stimulate the nerves. For on the irritability of the nerves life itself depends; and which sets every thing in the animal fabric in motion.
3. To restore respiration. For without this, neither can the blood circulate nor the nerves have sensibility.