of nervous conditions has met with more than one or two instances. Further, even in such extremely rare conditions, the usual tests are applicable and to the trained medical man at least clearly prove the nature of the case. The stethoscope and the mirror held in front of the patient's mouth are usually sufficient to demonstrate that the patient is alive and we should want more conclusive evidence than such as has been brought forward up to the present, to feel that cataleptic patients have been consigned to their coffins before life was totally extinct. Newspaper writers delight in the fictitious and marvelous, and without any regard whatever to the scientific phase of the subject, frequent mention of cases of premature burial is to be found almost daily in the press of the country. But upon investigating these newspaper stories, it will be found that they have been either originated in the fertile brain of some reporter or were merely published to consume space. CHAPTER XII. THE CHANGES IN THE BODY AFTER DEATH. =Cooling of the Body.=—The internal temperature of the healthy living being is about 37 degrees centigrade. But it may be increased several degrees in consequence of disease. After death the chemical changes upon which the maintenance of this temperature depends rapidly diminishes, and the body gradually cools to the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. This usually occurs in from about fifteen to twenty hours, but the time required depends upon a variety of conditions. Immediately after death there is, in nearly all cases, a slight elevation of internal temperature, owing to the fact that the metabolic changes in the tissues still continue for a time, while the blood ceases to be cooled by passing through the lungs and peripheral capillaries. After death from certain diseases yellow fever, cholera, rheumatic fever, and tetanus, a considerable elevation of internal temperature has been repeatedly observed. The time occupied by the cooling of the body may be prolonged after sudden death from accidents, acute diseases, apoplexy, and asphyxia. A number of cases is reported in which the body retained its heat for several days without known cause. After death from wasting chronic diseases, and in some cases after severe hemorrhage, the cooling of the body is very rapid, the internal temperature being reduced to that of the surrounding air within four or five hours. Fat bodies cool less quickly than lean ones, the bodies of well nourished adults less quickly than those of children or old persons. The temperature of the surrounding atmosphere, the degree of protection of the body from currents of air, of course, modify the progress of cooling; and the internal organs naturally retain their heat longer than the surface of the body. The rate at which cooling occurs is most rapid as a rule, during the hours immediately following death, notwithstanding the postmortem rise which may ensue.