trace of burning; his breeches were equally uninjured; but though not a hair of his head was burnt, his coif was totally consumed. The weather on the night of the accident was calm, the air very pure; no empyrenmatic or bituminous odour was perceived in the room, which was also free from smoke; there was no vestige of fire, except that the lamp, which had been full of oil, was found dry, and the wick reduced to cinder. "M. Fodoré observes, that the inflamed hydrogen, occasionally observed in churchyards, vanishes on the approach of the observer, like the flame which consumed P. Pertholi; and as he, in common with others, has remarked that this gas has developed in certain cases of disease, even in the living body, he seems inclined to join M. Mere in attributing this species of spontaneous combustion to the united action of hydrogen and electricity in the first instance, favoured by the accumulation of animal oil and the impregnation of spirituous liquors." Our authors furnish the following (among other) circumstances, by which the victims of this species of combustion are to be distinguished. "The extremities of the body, such as the feet and hands, have in general escaped. "The fire has little injured, and sometimes not at all, those combustible things that were in contact with the body when it was burning. "The combustion of these bodies has left a residue of greasy and fœtid ashes and fat, that were unctuous, and extremely offensive and penetrating." Both culprits and witnesses frequently stimulate various physical defects and incapacities. There is a great deal of most interesting matter as to the tricks of such persons, and the tests by which they may be exposed. As for example "Insanity has in all ages been feigned for the accomplishment of particular objects; we read of its having been thus simulated by David, Ulysses, and Lucius Brutus; the observations which we have already made upon the subject of imputed insanity, will suggest to the medical inquirer a plan of examination most likely to lead to a just conclusion. In general the detection of such an impostor will not be difficult; the feigned maniac never wil See case of Marie-annie Jauffret, A. D. 1779, (Fodore, vol. III. p. 206,) where also see other cases in illustration of this curi subject. Fodore alJudes to some cases where in consequence of combustion, possibly sponta, persons have been accused and condemned murder. Tom. III. P. 204. See also Macklauri's rim. Ca. p. 177 n. and 154. lingly looks his examiner in the face, and if his eye can be fixed, the changes in his countenance, on being accused, will be strongly indicative of his real state of mind; it is moreover very difficult to imitate the habits of a lunatic for any length of time, and to forego sleep; an insane person generally sleeps but little, and talks much during the night, but the pretender, if he thinks he is not watched, with sleep, and only act his part when he believes his conduct to be observed. which the sturdy impostor has in several "Somnolency. This is a state of body instances assumed; he pretends to be in a state incapable of any muscular motion; he is constantly in bed, retaining that posture in which his limbs are placed, or may unconscious of the external world; the inhappen to fall; his great aim is to appear teresting case of this kind related by Dr. Henmant must be considered as the master-piece of imposture. A person of the name of Drake, in the Royal African Corps, assumed an appearance of total insensibility, under which he resisted every kind of treatment; he resisted the shower bath as well as shocks of electricity; but on a proposal being uttered in his presence to apply the actual cautery, his pulse rose; and on preparations being made to remove him to Bethlem Hospital, an amendment soon manifested itself. "Deafness and Dumbness.-Where the former of these maladies is alone simulated, the inspector will be able, with a little address, to detect the imposture; a sudden noise will frequently betray the patient, and an instance of this kind is related by Ambrose Paré; we may also contrive to stances in which he is greatly interested, communicate in his presence some circumand notice the effect of the intelligence upon his countenance, or upon his pulse. Where dumbness only is feigned, we should remember that the powers of articulation never leave a person without some cause, which medical inquiry must discover. It has been a question whether the absence of the tongue should be considered a sufficient dispute the validity of such a proof, it is reason for muteness; although we cannot necessary to know what cases are record where persons did very well without that organ, but we are inclined to believe with Dr. Smith, that the muscles belonging ficient. But these observations apply to to the tongue were, in such cases, not de The reader will remember the use made of this by Charles II. in Peveril of the Peak. Jessieu has given an account of a Portuguese girl, of fifteen years of age, who had been born without a tongue, and he refers to a similar case recorded some years before by a surgeon of Saumur, where the subject was a boy, who had lost his tongue by gangrene, and yet to a certain degree, was able to ture, together with a reference to several other inperform the functions of it. A case of a similar nastances, stands recorded in the annals of our country, and may be found in the Philosophical Transactions. instances of imposture, where deafness or dumbness have been singly simulated; suppose a medical practitioner is called upon to examine a patient who declares himself to labour under the misfortune of congenital deafness, and consequent dumbness, what plan of investigation is he to pursue upon such an occasion? It must be admitted that where this simulation is well performed, it becomes extremely difficult to detect it; but it requires so much art and perseverance that few persons will be found capable of the deception: M. Sicard suc ceeded in the detection of a most accom plished impostor, by requiring him to answer a number of queries in writing; when the Abbé soon found that he spelt several words in compliance with their sound, in stead of according to their established or thography; by substituting for instance the c for q, which at once enabled the Abbé to declare that it was impossible that he should have been deaf and dumb from his birth, because he wrote as we hear, and not, as in the case of the real deaf and dumb, as we see. “ Blindness —In cases of alleged amaurosis, the practitioner has generally relied upon the contractility of the pupil, as a test of vision; but Richter asserts that nothing positive can be drawn from the mobility or immobility of the iris, as sometimes the one and sometimes the other occurs; if, however, the pupil does not contract, we must think that the practitioner is authorized in concluding as to the existence of the disease. By unexpectedly reflecting the rays of the sun, by means of a mirror, upon the eye of the patient, we shall generally be able to discover any deception that may have been practised. Where short-sight edness is pleaded as a disqualification, the truth may be easily ascertained by inspection. The French adopted a very simple and ingenious mode of distinguishing the feigned myopes who endeavoured to escape the conscription laws; they placed spectacles of various powers upon the persons to be examined, and suddenly bringing before their eyes a printed paper, the subject of which was wholly unknown to them, the facility with which the person read pointed out with tolerable accuracy the state of his vision. A myope,. for instance, and none but a myope, could read fluently a paper, brought close to his eyes, with concave glasses, and vice versa." Ordinary readers will be altogether unprepared for the mass of facts which professional writers have accumulated upon the subject of the likenesses subsisting between different individuals. In many cases the possession of an estate has been in a great measure determined by a likeness.-As for example, our own great Douglas' case, where Lord Mansfield decided in favour of the present Lord Douglas, very much in consequence of the extraordinary resemblance which he, and his brother Sholto, were proved to bear to Sir John Stewart and Lady Jane Douglas. “If Sir John Stewart," said he "was actor in the enlevement of Mignon and Saury's children, he, the most artless of men, did in a few days what the acutest genius could not have accomplished in years: he found two children the one the finished model of himself, the other the exact picture in miniature of Lady Jane." Nothing could be more convincing than that particular case of two children; and yet, if the reader turns to Foderé, (vol. i.) he will find some most extraordinary histories from the French Causes Celebres. We prefer, however, to quote from our present authors some cases which have occupied the attention of English Courts, and in which the uncertainty of human resemblance has been brought out in a most strange way indeed.— Mr. Frank Douglas, a well-known man of fashion in the last age, was very nearly hanged for a highway robberry. The notorious Page happened to be brought to Newgate-the man who had been robbed saw him, and the extraordinary resemblance explained what had put all London in a ferment of astonishment. We shall now quote. "At the Old Bailey sessions, for September, 1822, before the Common Serjeant and Middlesex Jury, Joseph Redman was indicted for assaulting William Brown, on the King's highway, and taking from his person a gold watch, &c. his property. Prosecutor stated, on cross-examination, that he knew a man of the name of Greenwood, so much like the prisoner, with his hat on, that he should hardly know the one from the other. Greenwood was in custody, and appeared at the bar, when the similarity between them struck everybody with astonishment. The prisoner, Redman, proved an alibi, and the jury returned in the preceding parts of our work alluded verdict of not guilty. We have frequently to the case of Richard Coleman, a brewer's clerk, who was indicted at the assizes held at Kingston, in Surry, in March, 1749, for the 23d of July pding, when he was cathe rape and murder of Sarah Green, on pitally convict nington Com 1749. In this executed on Ken. the 12th of April eman was positiveher death, as being one of the assailants. ly sworn to bywam Green, just before Two years after the execution of this unfor 2 ET tunate man, it was discovered that James "Martin Clinch, bookseller, and James "Upon the subject of personal identity, a curious question has presented itself for discussion, which requires some notice on flash of the pistol enabled the witness to identify the features of the assassin. The possibility of the statement was referred to the physical class of the Institute, who reported against it. Still, however, M. Fodoré, who relates the circumstance, is inclined to believe, that, if the persons be at a small distance, and the night be dark, such an event is by no means impossible. (Med. Leg. t. i. p. 28.) The following Engglish case may be here introduced in illus. tration of the question. John Haines was indicted, Jan. 12, 1799, for maliciously and feloniously shooting at H. Edwards, T. Jones, and T. Dowson, Bow-street officers, on the highway. Edwards deposed, that, in consequence of several robberies having been committed near Hounslow, he, together with Jones and Dowson, were employed to scour that neighbourhood; and that they accordingly set off in a post-chaise on the evening of Saturday, Nov. 10, when they were attacked near Bedford by two persons on horseback, one of whom stationed him. self at the head of the horses, while the other went to the side of the chaise. The night was dark, but from the flash of the pistols he could distinctly see that it was a dark brown horse, between 13 and 14 hands high, of a very remarkable shape, having a and, altogether, such that he could pick square head, and very thick shoulders him out of fifty horses; he had seen the horse since at Mr. Kendall's stables, in Long Acre. He also perceived, by the same flash of light, that the person at the side-glass had on a rough-shag, brown great-coat.' merated the various circumstances by which the countenance of an individual may be so changed, as to defeat every attempt to identify him. Fodoré mentions the following, the colour of the eyes or hair; the effects of age; loss, or acquisition of fat; change in climate, diet, diseases, and passions of the mind. These may also be metamorphosed in changing the countenance is universally by art. The influence of mental anxiety acknowledged "Writers on forensic medicine have enu. 'Danger, long travel, want, or woe, Soon change the form that best we know; And blanch at once the hair; More deeply than despair."" Marmion, Canto I, As we are not following any regular scheme or plan in these selections, but merely glancing over the volumes and noting what strikes us as likely to gratify ordinary readers, we shall now pass on to a subject, which, however, we may despise all the nuga canora about trances, premature interments, and extraordinary resuscitations, must Π always command the most lively in terest-that of Suspended Animation. It is admirably treated by our authors. We have room only for what follows: "Amongst the different anecdotes which have been brought forward in support of the popular belief in the frequency of living interment, and in proof of the fallacy of those signs which are commonly received as the unerring indications of death, we read of numerous instances where the knife of the anatomist has proved the means of resuscitating the supposed corpse; Philippe Peu, the celebrated French accoucheur, relates, himself, the case of a woman, upon whose supposed corpse he proceeded to perform the cæsarean section, when the first incision betrayed the awful fallacy under which he operated. The history of the unfortunate Vesalius, physician to Philip II. of Spain, furnishes another instance, upon which considerable stress has been laid; upon dissecting a Spanish gentleman, it is said that on opening the thorax the heart was found palpitating; for which he was brought before the inquisition, and would probably have suffered its most severe judgment, had not the King interceded in his behalf, and obtained for him the privilege of expiating his offence by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.* "M. Brukier also relates a case on the authority of M. l'Abbé Menon, of a young woman who was restored by the first incision of the anatomist's scalpel, and lived many years afterwards. With respect to the instance of Vesalius we would make this general observation, which will probably apply to most of the cases on record; that the movements which have been observed on such occasions are not to be received as demonstrations of life, they merely arise from a degree of muscular irritability which often lingers for many hours after dissolution, and which, on its apparent cessation, may be even re-excited by the application of galvanic stimuli. But there is a propensity in the human mind to believe in these horrors, because between credulity and fear there is an inherent affinity and alliance; and it may be very safely asserted, that there is nothing of which we have a greater instinctive horror, than of any force by which our voluntary exertions are totally repressed; hence it is, as Cuvier has remarked, that the poetic fic tions best calculated to secure our sympathy, are those which represent sentiment beings enclosed within immoveable bodies; the sighs of Clorinda issuing, with her * In returning, the ship was cast away upon the Island of Zante, where this unfortunate philosopher rishpeed from hunger. Horrible as it may appear, it was a custom in Persia, at the time that Herodotus wrote, of burying alive; and this historian was informed that Ames tris, the wife of Xerxes, when she was far advanced in age, commanded fourteen Persian children of illustrious birth to be interred alive, in honour of the deity whom they supposed to exist under the earth "The author of the present chapter had striking manifestation of the popular feelonce an opportunity of witnessing a most ing to which he has just alluded; a sailor, who had died suddenly on board a vessel in Mount's Bay, was sent on shore for interment on the same evening: this indecent haste in consigning the yet warm corpse of a human being to the grave, excited a very the fact was communicated; in a few hours strong and natural feeling in those to whom the knowledge of the circumstance became general in the town of Penzance, and imagination, which, in cases that interest the feelings, is always ready to colour each feature with the hue most congenial to the fancy, soon represented the case as one of living interment, and by midnight the impression had produced so strong an effect hundred persons assembled at the house of upon the credulity of the town, that many the mayor, and insisted upon the disinterfessional capacity, was called upon to acment of the body; the author, in his procompany the magistrates in the investigation, which was accomplished by torchlight, amidst an immense concourse of people: the body was disinterred, when, it is almost needless to add, that not the slightest mark was observed that could in the least sanction the popular belief so readily adopted, and enthusiastically maintained. and unphilosophical work has appeared ents in his favourrecalling into life and superstitious to the tombs of oped had long since "The histories of persons having been buried alive, or recovered after apparent death, are not, however, confined to the annals of modern times; we are informed by Diogenes Laertius that Empedocles acquired great fame for restoring a woman, supposed to be dead, from a paroxysm of hysteria; and Pliny in his Natural History, devotes a chapter to the subject, under the title of De his qui elati revixerunt;' in which an interesting case is related of Avicola, whose body was brought out and placed on the funeral pile, the flames of which are said to have resuscitated the unhappy victim, but too late to allow it to be rescued from its powers; but such cases merely go to shew that the common observer may be deceived. We feel no hesitation in asserting that it is physiologically impossible for a human being to remain more than a few minutes in such a state of asphyxia, as not to betray some sign by which a medical observer can at once recognize the existence of vitality, for if the respiration be only suspended for a short interval, we may conclude that life has fled forever; of all the acts of animal life this is by far the most essential and indispensable; breath and life are very properly considered in the scriptures as convertible terms, and the same synonym, as far as we know, prevails in every language. How ever slow and feeble respiration may be come by disease, yet it must always be perceptible, provided the naked breast and belly be exposed; for when the intercostal muscles act, the ribs are elevated, and the sternum is pushed forward; when the diaphragm acts, the abdomen swells; now this can never escape the attentive eye, and by looking at the chest and belly we shall form a safer conclusion than by the popular methods which have been usually adopted, such as the placing a vessel of water on the thorax, in order to judge by the stillness or agitation of the fluid; or holding the surface of a mirror before the mouth, which, by condensing the aqueous vapour of the breath, is supposed to denote the existence of respiration, although too feeble to be recognized in any other way. - Lend me a looking glass; If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, Why, then she lives.' Lear, Act V. Sc. III. "For the same purpose, light down, or any flocculent substance, from the extreme facility with which it is moved, has been supposed capable of furnishing a similar indication; but the result must not be received as an unequivocal proof, and accordingly Shakspeare, with that knowledge and judgment which so pre-eminently distinguish him, has represented Prince Henry as having been the eluded, when he carried off the crow the pillow of Henry the Fourth. By his gates of breath "With respect to the above tests, it may be remarked, that an imperceptible current of air may agitate the light down, and thus simulate the effects of respiration, while an exhalation, totally unconnected with that function, may sully the surface of a mirror held before the mouth; on the other hand, we have learnt from experience that mir rors have been applied to persons in a state of mere syncope, without being in the least tarnished. "Having thus considered the value of the tests of respiration, we shall proceed to appreciate those which have been considered as furnishing no less certain indications of death. The absence of the circulation, the impossibility of feeling the pulsations of the heart and arteries, have been regarded as infallible means of deciding whether the individual be dead; but it is proved beyond all doubt, that a person may live for several hours without its being possible to perceive the slightest movement in the parts just mentioned. It has been thought also, says Orfila, that an individual was dead when he was cold, and that he still lived if the warmth of the body was preserved; there is perhaps no sign of so little value; the drowned who may be recalled to life, are usually very cold; whilst in cases of apoplexy, and some other fatal diseases, certain degree of warmth is preserved even for a long period after death. Stiffness the body is another sign of death, upon which great reliance has been placed; but as it sometimes happens that it exists during life, it becomes necessary to point out the difference between the stiffness of death, and that which occurs during life, in certain diseases. For the following observations on this subject, we acknowledge ourselves indebted to the judicious treatise of Orfila. "1. Stiffness may be very considerable in a person who has been frozen, who is not yet dead, and who may even be recalled to life. This stiffness cannot be confounded with that which is the inevitable result of death, because it is known that the body has been exposed to the action of severe cold, and above all, because it is very general; in fact, the skin, breasts, the belly, and all the organs may possess the same rigidity as the muscles, a circumstance not observable in cadaverous stiffness, in which the muscles alone present any degree of resistance; besides, when the skin of a frozen person is depressed, by pressing forcibly upon it with the finger, a hollow is produced which is a long time in disappearing. When the position of a frozen limb is changed, a little noise is heard, caused by the rupture of particles of ice contained in the displaced part. "2. The stiffness to which the late M. Nysten has given the name of convulsive, and which sometimes manifests itself in violent nervous diseases, may be easily distinguished from cadaverous stiffness; when a limb is stiff in consequence of convulsions, &c. the greatest difficulty is experienced |