(1) Respiratory failure, including absence of visible movements of the chest, absence of the respiratory murmur, absence of evidence of transpiration of water vapour from the lungs by the breath. (2) Cardiac failure, including absence of arterial pulsation, of cardiac motion, and of cardiac sounds. (3) Absence of turgescence or filling of the veins on making pressure between them and the heart. (4) Reduction of the temperature of the body below the natural standard. (5) Rigor mortis and muscular collapse. (6) Coagulation of the blood. (7) Putrefactive decomposition. (8) Absence of red colour in semi-transparent parts under the influence of a powerful stream of light. (9) Absence of muscular contraction under the stimulus of galvanism, of heat, and of puncture. (10) Absence of red blush of the skin after subcutaneous injection of ammonia (Monteverdi’s test). (11) Absence of signs of rust or oxidation of a bright steel blade, after plunging it deep into the tissues. (The needle test of Cloquet and Laborde.) Sir Benjamin sums up as follows:-- “If all these signs point to death--if there be no indications of respiratory function; if there be no signs of movement of the pulse or heart, and no sounds of the heart; if the veins of the hand do not enlarge on the distal side of the fillet; if the blood in the veins contains a coagulum; if the galvanic stimulus fails to produce muscular contraction; if the injection of ammonia causes a dirty brown blotch--the evidence may be considered conclusive that death is absolute. If these signs leave any doubt, or even if they leave no doubt, one further point of practice should be carried out. The body should be kept in a room, the temperature of which has been raised to a heat of 84° Fahr., with moisture diffused through the air; and in this warm and moist atmosphere it should remain until distinct indications of putrefactive decomposition have set in.” Dr. Franz Hartmann, whose recent monograph[15] has excited much attention both in the English and American Press, observes:-- “Apparent death is a state that resembles real death so closely that even the most experienced persons believe such a person to be really dead. In many cases not even the most experienced physician, coroner, or undertaker can distinguish a case of apparent death from real death, neither by external examination nor by means of the stethoscope, nor by any of the various tests which have been proposed by this or that writer, for all those tests have been proved fallible, and it is now useless to discuss them at length, because many of the most experienced members of the medical profession have already agreed that there is no certain sign that a person is really and not apparently dead, except the beginning of a certain stage of putrefaction. All other tests ought to be set down as delusive and unreliable.” [RULES FOR OFFICIAL INSPECTORS.]