Other writers have accepted the theory that the subjects are not really dead, but are only in a death-like condition. The Germans express this condition of apparent death and of the perfect preservation of the living body by the term _scheintod_, which is, perhaps, better than the English term “suspended animation.” Dr Herbert Mayo describes the special condition of vampires as a “death-trance”—a positive status, a period of repose, the duration of which is sometimes definite and predetermined, though unknown, and says that the patient sometimes awakes suddenly when the term of the death-trance has expired. During this trance-period the action of the heart, breathing, voluntary motion, as well as feeling and intelligence and the vegetable changes in the body, are said to be suspended. Two instances of the death-trance are quoted. Cardinal Espinosa, prime minister under Philip the Second of Spain, died, as it was supposed, after a short illness. His rank entitled him to be embalmed. Accordingly, the body was opened for that purpose. The lungs and heart had just been brought into view, when the latter was seen to beat. The cardinal, awakening at the fatal moment, had still strength enough left to seize with his hand the knife of the anatomist. On the 23rd of September 1763, the Abbé Prévost, the French novelist and compiler of travels, was seized with a fit in the forest of Chantilly. The body was found and conveyed to the residence of the nearest clergyman. It was supposed that death had taken place through apoplexy. But the local authorities, desiring to be satisfied of the fact, ordered the body to be examined. During the process the poor Abbé uttered a cry of agony. It was too late. Among Theosophists and Continental spiritists a solution to the problem is found in their teaching concerning the astral body and the astral plane, as conveyed by Madame Blavatsky in _Isis Unveiled_.