RAISING THE DEAD.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2094, 14 September 1885, Page 2

RAISING THE DEAD.

Dr Richardson, in a recent number of the Asclepiad, suggests some serious reflections on the questions of what is death ? When doeß death occur ? May life be restored after death? By combining "artificial circulation" with artificial respiration a dog was restored to life one hour and five minutes after being killed by an overdose of chloroform,' the heart being perfectly still, cold, and passing into rigidity. Animalß that have been killed by suffocation, the heart and other viscera displayed by partial dissection, were so far brought into a state, of muscular irritability that the experiment was stopped from motives of humanity, lest the mutilated body should return to conscious sentient. Frogs poisoned by nitrate of amyl were restored after nine days of apparent death; in one case after signs of putrefactive change had commenced. Various methods of effecting those resuscitations are described, the most original and effective being that of pumping warm defibrinated and oxygenized blood into an artery in such a manner that the stroke of the pump shall correspond with the natural pulsations of the artery, and to the stroke of the heart, which is thus awakened to its customary work. The action of the peroxide of hydrogen in reanimating the blood and restoring animal heat in a dead body is quite startling Dr Richardson's paper appears to justify the 'conclusion that a drowned or suffocated man is not hopelessly dead so long as the bodily organs

remain uninjured by violence or disease, and the blood remains'sufficiently liquid to bo put in motion artificially, and supplied with a liftle oxygen to start the chemical movements of life.- i "Pe«P Sun," . * .