In general, I have had occasion to remark, that during the circulation of the black blood in the arteries, no fluids appear to issue from the different secreting tubes. But I confess, that in all these experiments, and in other similar ones which I have made, the animal is too much agitated, and the limits of the experiments too circumscribed, for any thing like a well founded judgment to be formed on the subject in question. It is chiefly from analogy, then, that I am led to conclude, that the black blood is unfit for the purposes of exhalation and nutrition: such supposition also accords well with divers of the phenomena of asphyxia.--1st, The want of exhalation from the skin during the state of asphyxia, is probably the reason of the phenomena of the animal heat in such sort of death.[97] 2dly, In asphyxiating animals very slowly during digestion, I have uniformly observed, that the bile ducts, and duodenum, contain a much less quantity of bile, than they do at such time, when these parts are exposed in the living animal.--3dly, As the blood loses nothing from the exercise of these functions, it must of course accumulate in the vessels; and in fact, it is very fatiguing and unsatisfactory, to dissect the bodies of those who have been hanged or asphyxiated with the vapours of charcoal, from the fluidity and abundance of their blood. But this abundance, perhaps, may depend upon the weakness of the absorbents. In other sorts of death, the absorbents continue for some time to act upon the serous portion of the blood remaining in the vessels. In asphyxia there is neither secretion nor absorption. The excretions also appear to be affected much in the same way. The bladder of asphyxiated persons has been observed by Portal, to be very much distended. Such distension, no doubt is occasioned by the urine already secreted before the accident which was the cause of their deaths. In general, the asphyxiæ which are occasioned by the circulation of the black blood unmixed with any deleterious substance, are not accompanied with those spasms, which in so many other sorts of death, are so frequent. These spasms, which evacuate the organs of their fluids, should be carefully distinguished from the simple relaxations of the sphincters, by which analogous effects are produced.[98] In asphyxia, all is debility, in asphyxia, we never see that augmentation of life, that development of power, which so frequently mark the latter movements of the dying. Hence also perhaps, the great flexibility of the members of asphyxiated persons. The stiffness of the muscles appears to depend in many cases, on the circumstance of death having come on precisely at the moment of their contractions. The fibres remain approximated, and coherent among themselves;[99] in asphyxia, on the contrary, as there exists an universal relaxation and want of action in the parts, they remain so after death, and yield to whatever impulse may be communicated to them.