A. de Labordette, Chirurgien de l’Hôpital de Lisieux, states in a letter to the Secretary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution:—
“I have collected manifold observations relating to persons drowned or asphyxiated, in whose case contraction of the jaws was remarked, and who were subsequently restored to life,” Dr. Brown-Séquard concurred in this, and declared further that such contraction is rather a sign of life than of death.—Lancet, 1870, vol. i., p. 436.
THE DIAPHANOUS TEST,
for the discovery of which a prize was given by the French Academy of Medicine, is regarded by Sir B. Ward Richardson as of secondary importance. It has certainly failed in many instances.
The following communication on
THE PROPER VALUE OF THE DIAPHANOUS
TEST OF DEATH,
by Edwin Haward, M.D.Edin., F.R.C.S.Eng., appears in the Lancet of June 10, 1893, p. 1404:—
THE DIAPHANOUS TEST.
“A case has come lately under my observation in which the value of the diaphanous test of death has been illustrated at its just worth, and, as the matter is one of supreme practical moment, I think it may be considered deserving a brief notice in the pages of the Lancet. Readers of the Lancet need scarcely be informed that the diaphanous test consists in taking a hand of a supposed dead person, placing it before a strong artificial light, with the fingers extended and just touching each other, and then looking through the narrow spaces between the fingers to see if there be there a scarlet line of light. The theory is that if there be such a line of scarlet colour there is some circulation still in progress, and therefore evidence of vital action, whilst if there be no illumination, then the circulation has ceased and death has occurred. The French Academy of Medicine was so impressed with the value of this test that it awarded, I believe, to the discoverer of it a considerable prize. The illustration I am about to give indicates, however, that this test must be received with the utmost caution. The facts run as follows:—I was called in January last to visit a lady seventy-three years of age, suffering from chronic bronchitis. She had often suffered at intervals from similar attacks during a period of twenty-five years. The present attack was very severe, and as she was obviously in a state of senile decrepitude her symptoms naturally gave rise to considerable anxiety. Nevertheless, she rallied and improved so much that after a few days my attendance was no longer required. I heard nothing more of this lady until February 6—a period of three weeks—when I was summoned early in the morning to see her immediately. The messenger told me that she had retired to bed in the usual way, and had apparently died in the night, but that she looked so life-like there was great doubt whether death had actually taken place. Within half an hour I was by her bedside; there was no sign of breathing, of pulse, or of heart-beat, and the hands, slightly flexed, were rather rigid, but the countenance looked like that of a living person, the eyes being open and life-like. I believed her to be dead, and that the rigidity of the upper limbs indicated commencing rigor mortis; but this curious fact was related to me by a near relative, that once before she had passed into a death-like state, with similar symptoms, even to the rigidity of the arms and hands, from which state she had recovered, and after which she had always experienced the direst apprehension of being buried alive. Her anxiety, it will be easily conceived, was readily communicated to her relatives, who urged me to leave nothing undone for determining whether life was or was not extinct. Under the circumstances I suggested that Dr. (now Sir) Benjamin Ward Richardson, who has made the proofs of death a special study, should be summoned. He soon arrived, and submitted the body to all the tests in the following order:—1. Heart sounds and motion entirely absent, together with all pulse movement. 2. Respiratory sounds and movements entirely absent. 3. Temperature of the body taken from the mouth the same as that in the surrounding air in the room, 62° F. 4. A bright needle plunged into the body of the biceps muscle (Cloquet’s needle test) and left there shows on withdrawal no sign of oxidation. 5. Intermittent shocks of electricity at different tensions passed by needles into various muscles and groups of muscles gave no indication whatever of irritability. 6. The fillet-test applied to the veins of the arm (Richardson’s test) causes no filling of veins on the distal side of the fillet. 7. The opening of a vein to ascertain whether the blood has undergone coagulation shows that the blood was still fluid. 8. The subcutaneous injection of ammonia (Monteverdi’s test) causes the dirty brown stain indicative of dissolution. 9. On making careful movements of the joints of the extremities, of the lower jaw, and of the occipito-frontals, rigor mortis is found in several parts. Thus of these nine tests eight distinctly declared that death was absolute; the exception, the fluidity of the blood, being a phenomenon quite compatible with blood preternaturally fluid and at a low temperature, even though death had occurred. 10. There now remained the diaphanous test, which we carried out by the aid of a powerful reflector lamp, yielding an excellent and penetrating light. To our surprise the scarlet line of light between the fingers was as distinct as it was in our own hands subjected to the same experiment. The mass of evidence was of course distinctly to the effect that death was complete; but, to make assurance doubly sure, we had the temperature of the room raised and the body carefully watched until signs of decomposition had set in. I made a visit myself on a succeeding day to assure myself of this fact.