Dr. John Oswald, in “Suspended Animal Life,” Philadelphia, 1802, p. 65, says:--“The books of authors on this subject are replete with criteria to judge of the existence or non-existence of the vital principle. It is not necessary to take a separate view of the propriety or impropriety of adopting any of these ambiguous signs, when we have the accomplishment of so great an end as that of restoring suspended life! Our exertions should never be influenced by any of them, but continued with ardour and unremitted attention for a length of time. It would be more happy for our unfortunate patients, and a source of greater satisfaction to ourselves, were they expunged altogether. They are all fallacious to a certain degree, and ought never to have the smallest influence on the propriety or impropriety of persevering in our attempts to revive the latent spark; for it is an unfortunate fact, in consequence of an ignorant confidence placed in them, that persons who might have been restored to life, to their friends, and to society have been consigned to the grave.... This important subject has been anxiously investigated by philosophers, to discover a just criterion of judging with more certainty in these cases whether life is extinct, and our patient a mass of dead matter, or whether, by our perseverance, he may not be again recovered. The most indubitable sign is allowed to be putrefaction of the body, or disorganisation of the fibre.” The following extracts from an instructive but apparently forgotten article in Dickens’ “All the Year Round,” July, 1869 (_à propos_ of a pamphlet, “Lettre sur la Mort Apparente, les Conséquences Réelles des Inhumations Précipitées, et le Temps pendant lequel peut persister l’Aptitude à être rappellé à la Vie,” by the late regretted Dr. Charles Londe), afford valuable suggestions:--