Physiological Researches on Life and Death

by Xavier Bichat

I shall accordingly content myself with inquiring what system it is which is particularly influenced by these substances, when mingled with the blood.—Now, 1st, This system appears to be the nervous one, and that portion of it especially, which presides over the parts of the animal life, the organic functions being only secondarily affected; 2dly, Of all the nervous system, the brain is that part which is the most affected; 3dly, Under this relation Monsieur Pinel appears to me to have been right, in placing some of the asphyxiæ (those for instance which are occasioned by the presence of a deleterious substance) among the neuroses. On this head the following considerations should leave us little doubt.

1st, In all the asphyxiæ, when the presence of a deleterious substance cannot be doubted, the symptoms consist of two general and opposite sets of phenomena, of spasm and torpor. Of two workmen who had come up out of the sewer of the street St. André des Ares, the one sat himself down upon a bulk, and fell into a state of asphyxia; the other with irregular convulsive movements, proceeded as far as the rue Battoir, and then fell down asphyxiated. The Sieur Verville, in consequence of inhaling the breath of a man who was lying in a state of asphyxia from the vapour of lead, fell down suddenly, and in a short time became convulsed. The vapour of charcoal intoxicates, as it is said. I have seen animals asphyxiated with other gases, and perishing with a stiffness, such as could be produced only by the most violent spasm. The centre of all these symptoms, and the organ from which they emanate, undoubtedly is the brain, and they depend upon its irritation or compression.

2dly, The animal life is always interrupted before the organic life, wherever the asphyxiating cause has been of a compound nature. Now the centre of the animal life is the brain.

3dly, I have proved when the animal perishes from the circulation of the black blood in the arteries, that the brain is especially affected even then; but in the same way, that is, by the cephalic arteries, the deleterious substance itself, may be introduced into the brain.

4thly, I have pushed a variety of deleterious gases (for example, sulphurated hydrogen) into the brain, and also some of those substances which vitiate the nature of these gases. The animal has always perished with symptoms of spasm, or torpor, and in general the death which is occasioned by the different gases, is always similar to that which is produced by the introduction of pernicious substances into the brain.

5thly, The consequences of these asphyxiæ, when life has been restored, invariably suppose a lesion of the cerebral system, such consequences consist of palsy, tremour, wandering pains, and derangements of the exterior apparatus of the senses.

From all these multiform experiments and considerations, we may surely conclude, that it is on the brain and nervous system that the deleterious principle, introduced into the blood, must act; from the death of these parts, that of the others is derived.

In this case the different organs no doubt are directly enfeebled, and may perhaps be immediately affected by those principles, which flow into them together with the blood, but all such phenomena, are even more visible in the animal, than in the organic life.

Let us not forget however, that a part at least of the cause of this sort of death, consists in the influence of the venous blood upon the organs, and that this influence must ever be in proportion to the length of time that such blood continues to circulate. The differences then which are found in the asphyxiæ, may be said to proceed from the greater or less effect of the venous blood upon the system, from the different nature of the various deleterious substances inspired, and from the age and temperament of the individual affected.