Pathological researches on death from suffocation and from syncope, and on vital and post-mortem burning : suggested by the case of the alleged Bridgnorth matricide / by Samuel Wright.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological researches on death from suffocation and from syncope, and on vital and post-mortem burning : suggested by the case of the alleged Bridgnorth matricide / by Samuel Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and its cavities nearly or entirely empty—a condition the reverse of that which would be found in congestion of the chief internal organs. In my professional experience I have met with five decided cases of fatal fainting. The first was a man of weakly habit, who suddenly swooned and died after having taken only an average dose of colchicum, with sulphate and carbon- ate of magnesia. He was a patient of the late Dr. Moffat of Erdington, at whose request I attended the post-mortem. The heart did not contain a dessert-spoon- ful of blood in the whole of its cavities. The brain and lungs were paler than natural, and the ordy vascular fulness anywhere observable, was in the large venous trunks. The second was a cUorotic girl in Queen's Hospital, who, having gone hastily into the kitchen, complained, on returning, of faintness, sat down upon her bed and died instantly. The heart was quite empty: the other internal organs were healthy. The third was a patient the subject of typhoid fever. An anomalous discharge of blood, per vaginam, suddenly occurred, and although she lost only a few ounces, she did not respond to stimuli, but fainted and died. The heart was nearly empty: a trifling congestion of the brain and lungs being the only other morbid appearance. The fourth was a porter of a wine-merchant in this town. He had frequently suffered from attacks of syncope. On coming from a distance one day, he walked up a steep hill to relieve his horse; then got into the cart; laid his head upon the seat, and neither stirred nor spoke again. A relative, who was present, tried to rouse him, but he was quite dead. Empti- ness of all the cavities of the heart was the only peculiarity discernible. In the fifth case, death was instantaneous, and clearly occasioned by sudden mental emotion, occurring to a debilitated and very sensitive subject. Here, again, the heart did not contain a tea-spoonful of blood, and all the organs were paler than usual. Medical writers, in all ages, have observed this emptiness of the heart after death from syncope. snperstite pulsus \igore.—Sauvages). In suffocation, an opposite state exists—nil the powers of the organ being exerted against accumulating mechanical obstruction, and it is not until this obstruction becomes complete, that pulsation is arrested. Coleman says that the heart has frequently been observed to contract, or more properly to vibrate, for more than two hours after respiration was suspended.—Op. cit., p. 12; Fothergill—Op. cit, pp. 17,18.» In syncope, says Dr. Kay, the circulation is suddenly arrested from the cessation of the heart's moOon, and from the diminution of the activity and power of the capiUary vessels.—Op. cit, p. 235. • The cavity wliich first ceases to contract at de.ith, is the left ventricle; secondly tho left auricle; thirdly the righi ventricle; and lastly the right auricle, which continues the longest to vibTatB.—Anatomical Descriptions, p. 144.