“A CRIMINAL’S HEART.
“We find in an account taken from the ‘Boston Medical and Surgical Journal’ some observations on the heart of a hanged criminal, which are remarkable in a moral point of view, as well as in their scientific aspect. The man died, it appears, as the phrase is, without a struggle; and, therefore, probably in the first instance, he fell into a syncope. The lungs and brain were found normal. Seven minutes after suspension, the heart’s sounds were distinctly heard, its pulsations being one hundred a minute; two minutes later they were ninety-eight; and in three minutes sixty, and very feeble. In two minutes more the sounds became inaudible. The man was suspended at ten o’clock, and his body was cut down twenty-five minutes afterwards. There was then neither sound nor impulse. At 10.40 the cord was relaxed, and then the face became gradually pale; the spinal cord was uninjured.... At 11.30 a regular movement of pulsation was observed in the right subclavian vein; and on applying the ear to the chest, there was heard a regular, distinct, and single beat, accompanied with a slight impulse. Hereupon Drs.. Clark, Ellis, and Shaw open the thorax, and expose the heart, which still continues to beat! The right auricle contracted and dilated with energy and regularity. At twelve o’clock the pulsations were forty in a minute; at 1.45 five per minute. They ceased at 2.45; but irritability did not entirely disappear until 3.18, more than five hours after suspension. ‘This fact,’ says M. Séquard, ‘demonstrates that in a man, unfortunately, even when syncope exists for some minutes at the commencement of strangulation, the ventricles of the heart cease to beat almost as quickly as they do in strangulation without syncope.’ With regard to the moral aspects of this case, the same gentleman remarks:—‘People will probably be surprised that the body of this man should have been opened while the beating of the heart was still audible. We will not ask here if the doctors committed or not a blamable action; we will only say that we know them personally, and that, if they have in part merited the violent reproaches addressed to them, they are, nevertheless, hommes de cœur, who, in an excess of scientific zeal, did not notice that the body upon which they experimented was not, perhaps, at the time a dead body.’”
SYNCOPE.
The deaths attributed to syncope in the Registrar-General’s reports for England and Wales during the last six years are:—
| MALES. | FEMALES. | |
| 1888 | 817 | 896 |
| 1889 | 939 | 922 |
| 1890 | 1,237 | 1,250 |
| 1891 | 1,355 | 1,301 |
| 1892 | 941 | 943 |
| 1893 | 848 | 770 |
Syncope, however, is not a disease, though often certified as such, but is merely a symptom of certain maladies, or a manifestation of suspended animation from unascertained cause. In Hoblyn’s “Dictionary of Medical Terms,” p. 632, syncope is described as—“Fainting or swoon; a sudden suspension of the heart’s action, accompanied by cessation of the functions of the organs of respiration, internal and external sensation, and voluntary motion.” DEATHS ATTRIBUTED TO SYNCOPE.There appears, therefore, every probability that, with careless or ignorant medical practitioners, syncope is not seldom mistaken for trance, and a certificate of death may be given where there is merely a suspension and not a termination of life; and this probability is reduced to a certainty when we learn the number of premature burials and narrow escapes reported by Winslow, Bruhier, Köppen, E. Bouchut, Lénormand, F. Kempner, Moore Russell Fletcher, Gannal, Gaubert, Hartmann, and other recognised authorities. Dr. James Curry, Senior Physician to Guy’s Hospital, and Lecturer on the Theory and Practice of Medicine, in the introduction to his “Observations on Apparent Death,” London, 1815, 2 ed., p. 1, says—“The time is still within the recollection of many now living when it was almost universally believed that life quitted the body in a very few minutes after the person had ceased to breathe. Remarkable examples to the contrary were, indeed, upon record; but these, besides being extremely rare, were generally cases wherein the suspension, as well as the recovery of life, had occurred spontaneously; they were, therefore, beheld with astonishment, as particular instances of Divine Interposition.” It is believed that the majority of the members of the medical profession still entertain the idea that a human being is dead when breathing can no longer be detected, as in the cases of reported sudden deaths; and, except in those which occur from drowning, or suffocation through noxious gases, attempts are very rarely made to promote restoration, and, unless they return to life spontaneously while above ground, there are good reasons to fear that an appreciable number do so under ground. The prevailing belief in the existence of sudden deaths is one of the chief causes of the terrible mistakes that lead to live burials. If this delusive idea were removed, those concerned, such as physicians, undertakers, relatives, and friends, would treat a person who unexpectedly took on the appearance of death as one needing careful attention by physician and nurse to bring him round to health again, as is usually done in cases of fainting. If trance were understood, doctors would be on the lookout for it; but, as it is not understood, it is called death, and we bury our mistakes under ground.
Dr. Hilton Fagge, while doubting whether there is any foundation for the strong fear which many persons entertain of being buried alive after supposed death, allows that there is danger in cases of sudden death. In his “Principles and Practice of Medicine,” Dr. Fagge says: “The cases really requiring caution are some very few instances of persons found in the streets, or losing consciousness unexpectedly and in unusual circumstances.”[13]
Dr. Léonce Lénormand, in “Des Inhumations Précipitées,” p. 86, says that medical archives record details of a great number of apoplectic cases revived after one, two, and three days’ apparent death; and observes that the most celebrated physicians, both ancient and modern, agree in recommending delay in the burial of persons who succumb to this affliction.
Dr. Franz Hartmann, in his “Premature Burial,” p. 11, quotes the following:—