Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1875 Excerpt: ... conditions of life. This idea is further sustained by the well-known fact that many infants born apparently dead, and remaining for some time in this state, do actually revive and continue to live. I admit that, in a very important sense, its extra-uterine life was a ' prolongation' of its foetal life, but precisely in the same way as it is in all our bodies. Certainly there is no new life imparted to a child after it is born. The principle of life mysteriously contained in the vivified germ is the same life continued on in the matured man, only developed. The life of the oak of a century's growth is essentially the same life that evidenced itself in the first swelling of the acorn beneath the soil. All we contend for is life, not the amount or quantity of life, but the fact of life; and this latter, we think, was abundantly established by the evidence. "Besides, the rulings of the courts, both in England and this country, have settled the question, in deciding that respiration (or crying) on the part of the new-born child is not required to establish the proof of a live birth, provided there are other evidences. Undoubtedly, the best physiological test of life is the pulsation of the heart. It is a more satisfactory proof than respiration, inasmuch as, in ordinary cases, life terminates in the heart, and not in the lungs or brain, since the heart is found to be beating some time after all evidences of breathing have ceased. The well-known experiments of Sir B. Brodie on animals also confirm this assertion. We do not pronounce a dying man to be dead, however feeble or inaudible his respiration may be, so long as we can feel or hear the throbbings of his heart; certainly we would hardly think it right to entomb such a person. And what is true of the man in t...
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
