“It is not always easy to determine when the spark of life has become finally extinguished. From fear of being buried alive, which prevails more abroad than in this country, some infallible criterion of death, capable of being applied by unskilled persons, has been considered a desideratum, and valuable prizes have been offered for such a discovery. The conditions most resembling actual death are syncope, asphyxia, and trance, particularly the last. We cannot, however, say that any infallible criterion applicable by the vulgar has been discovered.” The writer then proceeds to describe the various symptoms usually considered to denote death. The chief of these is putrefaction, but he observes that putrefaction may occur locally during life, and general septic changes may occur to some extent before death. Dr. Gannal, in “Signes de la Mort,” p. 31, says:-- “I share the opinion of the majority of authors who have written on this subject, and I consider _putrefaction_ as the only certain sign of death.” The author then shows that all other signs are uncertain, and adds “that it is possible, by taking certain measures, to wait until putrefaction is well manifest, without injuring the public health.” If the attending medical practitioner could always be relied upon to look for any such combination of signs as above suggested, there would be much less danger of premature burial than at present almost everywhere prevails; but personal investigation obliges the author deliberately to declare that these are looked for only in a comparatively few instances. _RIGOR MORTIS._ [RIGOR MORTIS.] With reference to _rigor mortis_, one of the signs many physicians regard as infallible as putrefaction, and to which the _British Medical Journal_ attaches much importance, I cite the following:-- Dr. Samuel Barker Pratt says that _rigor mortis_, which is regarded as an absolute proof of death, is in itself a life-action, caused by a gradual withdrawal of the nerve-forces from the body, and is distinctly akin to, and the same in effect as, the tightening of a muscle, and other similar physiological actions in the living body. Dr. Roger S. Chew observes:-- “_Rigor mortis_ is a condition that seldom or never supervenes in the hot weather in India, and is often a feature of catalepsy. “Ecchymoses, or _post-mortem_ stains, are sometimes of value, but very frequently they do not appear, even though there are strong evidences of putrefaction having set in, and in some cases this cadaveric lividity, as it is termed, may be the result of violence received before animation was suspended, and, the vital spark not having been extinguished though the body was apparently dead, echymosis had asserted itself as a process of life, and not death.” Ebenezer Milner, M.D.Edinb., L.R.C.S.E., observes in a paper on “Catalepsy or Trance” in the _Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_, 1850, vol. lxxiv., p. 330:--