Nothing seems to have been done to remedy this serious evil; and forty-two years later Mr. Chas. Kite, a well-known practitioner, called attention to the subject in a volume, entitled “The Recovery of the Apparently Dead,” London, 1788. This author, on p. 92, says:--“Many, various, and even opposite appearances have been supposed to indicate the total extinction of life. Formerly, a stoppage of the pulse and respiration were thought to be unequivocal signs of death; particular attention in examining the state of the heart and larger arteries, the flame of a taper, a lock of wool, or a mirror applied to the mouth or nostrils, were conceived sufficient to ascertain these points; _and great has been the number of those who have fallen untimely victims to this erroneous opinion_. Some have formed their prognostic from the livid, black, and cadaverous countenance; others from the heavy, dull, fixed, or flaccid state of the eyes; from the dilated pupil; the foaming at the mouth and nostrils, the rigid and inflexible state of the body, jaws, or extremities; the intense and universal cold, etc. Some, conceiving any one of these symptoms as incompetent and inadequate to the purpose, have required the presence of such of them as were, in their opinion, the least liable to error; but whoever will take the trouble of reading the Reports of the (Humane) Society with attention, will meet with very many instances where all the appearances separately, and even where several associated in the same case, occurred, and yet the patient recovered; and it is therefore evident that these signs will not afford certain and unexceptionable criteria by which we may distinguish between life and death.” Mr. Kite furnishes references to numerous cases of recovery where the apparently dead exhibited black, livid, or cadaverous countenances; eyes fixed or obscure; eyeballs diminished in size, immovable and fixed in their sockets, the cornea without lustre; eyes shrivelled; froth at the mouth; rigidity of the body, jaws, and extremities; partial or universal cold.[1] The crux of the whole question is the uncertainty of the signs which announce the cessation of physical existence. Prizes have been offered, and prizes have been awarded, but further experience has shown that the signs and tests, sometimes singly and sometimes in combination, have been untrustworthy, and that the only certain and unfailing sign of death is decomposition.