“It has been judiciously remarked that it would be a good plan to spread the knowledge of the sure and certain characteristics which enable us to distinguish every form of lethargy from real death. It cannot be denied that at the present epoch the utmost pains are taken to popularise every kind of knowledge. Nevertheless, it makes slow way through the jungles of prejudice and vulgar error. Not long ago it was over and over again asserted that an infallible mode of ascertaining whether a person was dead or not was to inflict a burn on the sole of the foot. If a blister full of water resulted, the individual was not dead; if the contrary happened, there was no further hope. This error was unhesitatingly accepted as an item of the popular creed. “The Council of Hygiene, applied to by the Government, indicated putrefaction and cadaverous rigidity as infallible signs of actual death. In respect to the first--putrefaction--a professional man is not likely to make a mistake; but nothing is more possible than for non-professionals to confound hospital rottenness (gangrene) with true _post-mortem_ putrefaction. M. de Parville declines to admit it as a test adapted for popular application. Moreover, in winter, the time required for putrefaction to manifest itself is extremely uncertain. “The cadaverous rigidity--the stiffness of a corpse--offers an excellent mode of verifying death; but its value and importance are not yet appreciable by everybody, or by the first comer. Cadaverous rigidity occurs a few hours after death; the limbs, hitherto supple, stiffen; and it requires a certain effort to make them bend. But when once the faculty of bending a joint is forcibly restored--to the arm, for instance--it will not stiffen again, but will retain its suppleness. If the death be real, the rigidity is overcome once for all. But if the death be only apparent, the limbs quickly resume, with a sudden and jerking movement, the contracted position which they previously occupied. The stiffness begins at the top, the head and neck, and descends gradually to the trunk. “These characteristics are very clearly marked; but they must be caught in the fact, and at the moment of their appearance, because, after a time of variable duration, they disappear. The contraction of the members no longer exists, and the suppleness of the joints returns. Many other symptoms might be added to the above; but they demand still greater clearness of perception, more extended professional knowledge, and more practised habits of observation.