“Suffocation by foul air and mephitical gas is not a rare form of death in the United Kingdom. It is possible that suspended animation may now and then have been mistaken for the absolute extinction of life. Dr. Londe gives an instructive case to the purpose. At the extremity of a large grocer’s shop, a close, narrow corner, or rather hole, was the sleeping-place of the shopman who managed the night sale till the shop was closed, and who opened the shutters at four in the morning. On the 16th of January, 1825, there were loud knocks at the grocer’s door. As nobody stirred to open it, the grocer rose himself, grumbling at the shopman’s laziness, and, proceeding to his sleeping-hole to scold him, he found him motionless in bed, completely deprived of consciousness. Terror-struck by the idea of sudden death, he immediately sent in search of a doctor, who suspected a case of asphyxia by mephitism. His suspicions were confirmed by the sight of a night-lamp, which had gone out, although supplied with oil and wick, and by a portable stove containing the remains of charcoal partly reduced to ashes. In spite of a severe frost, he immediately had the patient taken into the open air, and kept on a chair in a position as nearly vertical as possible. The limbs of the sufferer hung loose and drooping, the pupils were motionless, with no trace either of breathing or pulsation of the heart or arteries; in short, there were all the signs of death. The most approved modes of restoring animation were persisted in for a long while without success. At last, about three in the afternoon--that is, after _eleven hours’_ continued exertion--a slight movement was heard in the region of the heart. A few hours afterwards the patient opened his eyes, regained consciousness, and was able to converse with the spectators attracted by his resurrection. Dr. Londe draws the same conclusions as before--namely, that persons suffocated by mephitism are not unfrequently buried when they might be saved.” [DANGER TO CHOLERA PATIENTS.]