The following from Ogston’s _Medical Jurisprudence_, p. 370, is a case in point (quoted by the _Lancet_):--“In October, 1840, a servant girl, who had retired to bed apparently in perfect health, was found the following morning, as it appeared, dead. A surgeon who was called pronounced her to have been dead for some hours. A coroner’s inquest was summoned for four o’clock, and the reporter and the surgeon who had been called in to the girl were ordered to inspect the body previous to its sitting. On proceeding to the house for this purpose at two o’clock, the inspectors found the girl lying in bed in an easy posture, her face pallid, but placid and composed, as if she were in a deep sleep, while the heat of the body had not diminished. A vein was opened by them, and various stimuli applied, but without affording any sign of resuscitation. After two hours of hesitation and delay, a message being brought that the jury were waiting for their evidence, they were forced to proceed to the inspection. In moving the body for this purpose, the warmth and pliancy of the limbs were such as to give the examiners the idea that they had to deal with a living subject! The internal cavities, as they proceeded, were found so warm that a very copious steam issued from them on exposure. All the viscera were in a healthy state, and nothing was detected which could throw the smallest light on the cause of this person’s death.” Tidy (_Legal Medicine_), part i., p. 140, remarks thereon--“A mistake had no doubt been made in this case, as its warmth was not caused by decomposition.”