INSTANCES OF ANIMAL HIBERNATION.
Mr. Braid, after citing facts as to higher animals, proceeds:—“There are other creatures which have not the power of migrating from climes too intensely hot for the normal exercise of their physical functions, and the lives of these animals are preserved through a state of torpor superinduced by the want of sufficient moisture, their bodies being dried up from excessive heat. This is the case with snails, which are said to have been revived by a little cold water being thrown on them, after having remained in a dry and torpid state for fifteen years. The vibrio tritici has also been restored, after perfect torpidity and apparent death for five years and eight months, by merely soaking it in water. Some small, microscopic animals have been apparently killed and revived again a dozen times by drying and then applying moisture to them. This is remarkably verified in the case of the wheel-animalcule. And Spallanzani states that some animalcules have been recovered by moisture after a torpor of twenty-seven years. According to Humboldt, again, some large animals are thrown into a similar state from want of moisture. Such he states to be the case with the alligator and boa-constrictor during the dry season in the plains of Venezuela, and with other animals elsewhere.”—On Trance and Human Hibernation, p. 47.
Dr. Moore Russell Fletcher, in his treatise on “Suspended Animation,” pp. 7, 8, observes:—“Snakes and toads live for a long time without air or food. The following experiment was made by a Mr. Tower, of Gardiner (Maine). An adder, upwards of two feet in length, was got into a glass jar, which was tightly sealed. He was kept there for sixteen months without any apparent change, and when let out, looked as well as when put in, and crawled away.
“The common pond trout, when thrown into snow, will soon freeze, remain so for days, and when put into cold water to remove the frost become lively as ever.
“When residing in New Brunswick, in 1842, we went to a lake to secure some trout, which were frozen in the snow and kept for use. While there we saw men with long wooden tongs catching frost fish from the salt water at the entrance of a brook. The fish were thrown upon the ice in great quantities. We had a barrel of them put up with snow and kept frozen, and in a cool place. For six or seven weeks they were taken out and used as wanted, and might be kept frozen for an indefinite time, and be alive when thawed in cold water. The two pieces of a fish, cut in two when frozen, would move and try to swim when thawed in cold water.”
SO-CALLED HUMAN HIBERNATION.
Dr. George Moore observes that “A state of the body is certainly sometimes produced (in man) which is nearly analogous to the torpor of the lower animals—a condition utterly inexplicable to any principle taught in the schools. Who, for instance, can inform us how it happens that certain fishes may be suddenly frozen in the Polar Sea, and so remain during the long winter and yet be requickened into full activity by returning summer?”—Use of the Body in Relation to the Mind, p. 31.
UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH.
Hufeland, in his “Uncertainty of Death,” 1824, p. 12, observes that it is easier for mankind to fall into a state of trance than the lower creatures, on account of their complicated anatomy. It is a transitory state between life and death, into which anyone may pass and return from. Trance was common among the Greeks and Romans, who, just before cremation, had the custom of cutting off a finger-joint, most probably to discover if there was any trace of life. Death does not come suddenly; it is a gradual process from actual life into apparent death, and from that to actual death. It is a mistake to take outward appearances for inner death.
“It often happens a person is buried in a trance knowing all the preparations for the interment, and this affects him so much that it prolongs the trance by its depressing influence. How long can a man exist in a state of trance? Is there no sign by which the remaining spark of life may be recognised? Do no means exist to prevent awakening in the grave? Nothing can be said as to its duration; but we do know that differences in the cause and circumstances will cause a difference in duration. The amount of strength of the person would have great effect in this. Weak persons, broken down by excesses, would die sooner than the strong. The nature of the disease would make a difference. Old age is less liable to trance than the young. Long sickness destroys the sources of life, and shortens the process of death. Sorrow and trouble, and numerous diseases, seem to bring on death; yet ofttimes the source of life in them exists to its full extent, and what seems in them to be death may be only a fainting fit, or cramp, which temporarily interrupts the action of life. Women are more liable to trance than men: most cases have happened in them. Trance may exist in the new-born; give them time, and many of them revive. The smell of the earth is at times sufficient to wake up a case of trance. Six or seven days, or longer, are often required to restore such cases.” (Extracted from pp. 10-24.)