Dr. Gannal, in his “Signes de la Mort,” p. 54, says:-- “The loss of transparency of the fingers is an uncertain sign, because with certain subjects it takes place some time before death; next, because it does not always occur in the corpse; and finally, because it exists under certain circumstances in sick persons--in intermittent fever, for example, when the skin loses colour, the hands get cold, and the nails blue, as happens at the onset of the fits.” Orfila, “Médicine Légale,” vol. i., p. 478, 4th edit., observes:-- “This sign can be of no use, because it is easy to prove that the fingers of corpses placed between the eye and the flame of a candle are transparent, even when this experiment is made one or two days after death.” Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson read a paper before the Medical Society of London on “The Absolute Signs and Proofs of Death,” published (in 1889) in No. 21 of the _Asclepiad_. The circumstance which originated his investigation was a case of the revival of an apparently dead child immediately before the funeral. Dr. Richardson has seen persons apparently dead, and presenting all the signs of death, but who were really living. Amongst these he cites the following:-- “A medical man found dead, as it was presumed, from an excessive dose of chloral. To all common observation this gentleman was dead. There was no sign of respiration; it was very difficult for an ear so long trained as my own to detect the sounds of the heart; there was no pulse at the wrist, and the temperature of the body had fallen to 97° Fahr. In this condition the man had lain for some hours before my arrival; and yet, under the simple acts of raising the warmth of the room to 84° Fahr. and injecting warm milk and water into the stomach, he rallied slowly out of the sleep, and made a perfect recovery.” More remarkable is the case of a man struck by lightning, details of which Sir Benjamin received, in 1869, from Dr. Jackson, of Somerby, Leicestershire. “The patient reached his home in a state of extreme prostration, in which he lay for a time, and then sank into such complete catalepsy that he was pronounced to be dead, and heard the sound of his own passing bell from the neighbouring church; by a desperate attempt at movement of his thumbs he attracted the attention of the women engaged about him, and, being treated as one still alive, recovered, and lived for several years afterwards, retaining in his memory the facts, and relating them with the most consistent accuracy.” [SIR B. W. RICHARDSON’S ENUMERATION.] Medical practitioners tell us that the signs of death are quite easy and impossible to mistake. Dr. Richardson, who has had the best of reasons, as already shown, for observation and investigation, holds a different opinion, and enumerates the signs of death as follows:--