In this condition of the system the senses were in a state of profound sleep; the voluntary muscles, on the contrary, were in a state of violent action; but this action not being excited by volition, nor under its control, the patient remained as motionless as she was insensible. The brain was in a state of temporary death; the muscle in a state of intense life. And the converse may happen: the muscle may die, while the brain lives; contractility may be destroyed, while sensibility is perfect; the power of motion may be lost, while that of sensation may remain unaffected. A case is on record, which affords an illustration of this condition of the system. A woman had been for some time confined to her bed, labouring under severe indisposition. On a sudden she was deprived of the power of moving a single muscle of the body; she attempted to speak, but she had no power to articulate; she endeavoured to stretch out her hand, but her muscles refused to obey the commands of her will, yet her consciousness was perfect, and she retained the complete possession of her intellectual faculties. She perceived that her attendants thought her dead, and was conscious of the performance upon her own person of the services usually paid to the dead; she was laid out, her toes were bound together, her chin was tied up; she heard the arrangements for her funeral discussed, and yet she was unable to make the slightest sign that she was still in the possession of sense, feeling, and life. In one form of disease, then, the animal life, both the sensitive and the motive portions of it, may perish; and in another form of disease, either the one or the other part of it may be suspended, while the organic life continues in full operation: it follows that the two lives, blended as they are, are distinct, since the one is capable of perishing without immediately and inevitably involving the destruction of the other.