so completely the power of suspending or at least of diminishing the action of the heart, that its pulsations were imperceptible. Lastly, the character of the death, as to violence or gradual extinction, is often exhibited in the physiognomy of the dead. Where it has taken place during a convulsion, or by agents that have forcibly and suddenly arrested respiration or innervation, the countenance may be livid, the jaws clenched, the tongue protruded and caught between the teeth, and the eyes forced, as it were, from their sockets; but usually in death from old age or even from acute and tormenting disease, whatever distortion or mark of suffering may have existed prior to dissolution, subsides after the spirit has passed, and the features exhibit a placidity of expression, singularly contrasting with their previously excited condition. For effect, however, the poet and the painter suit their descriptions of death to the character of the individual whom they are depicting. The tyrant falls convulsed and agonized, whilst the tender and delicate female is described to have progressively withered, till "At last, Without a groan, or sigh, or glance to show A parting pang, the spirit from her past: And they who watch'd her nearest could not know Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow Glazed o'er her eyes—the beautiful, the black, Byron, Don Juan, Canto IV. Warwick's description of the frightful physiognomy of Duke Humphrey, after death from suffocation, is scarcely overdrawn:— "But see his face is black and full of blood; His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling: And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd. It cannot be but he was murder'd here: King Henry VI. p. 2. Act. III. How different is this picture from that of the countenance of the young being, who has gradually sunk to death in the manner above described. The beauty is unextinguished, and the paleness and lividity of death have taken the place of the colours of life; yet the wonted physiognomy may remain. "Hush'd were his Gertrude's lips! but still their bland With love that could not die!" CAMPBELL. Perhaps one of the most beautiful and accurate pictures, drawn. by the immortal Byron, is his description of the serenity of countenance observable in most fresh corpses; an expression which, by association, is deeply affecting, but not without its consolation to the friends of the departed. He, who hath bent him o'er the dead, Have swept those lines where beauty lingers: The rapture of repose that's there: The fix'd yet tender traits, that streak The languor of the placid cheek; And but for that sad, shrouded eye, That fires not,—wins not,—weeps not now: And but for that chill, changeless brow, Appals the gazing mourner's heart, The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon: Some moments, ay, one treach'rous hour, The first, last look by death reveal'd. secre- interstitial, II. 58, II. 166. of lymph, II. 25. of recrementitial secretions, of solids, II. 166. Abstinence, deaths from, 465. Academia del cimento, experiments of 18. benzoic, where found, 19. - uric, where met with, 17. xanthic, where met with, 17. Air, atmospheric, properties of, II. 73. Albumen, where met with, 15. concrete, where met with, 15. Aliments, classification of, 447. occipital, 258. Anguish with bodily suffering, expres. Anhelation, II. 93. Animalcules, spermatic, II. 267. Animals and vegetables, differences be- cold-blooded, what, II. 171. Appetite, physiology of the, 461. Anatomie vivante, referred to, 27. Apparatus, what, 26. Arsenuretted hydrogen, effects of the Arteries, circulation in the, II. 139. Asiatic race, II. 468. erect, 340. horizontal, 347. Audition, 113, 125. Aura seminis, what, II. 267. fecundation, II. 292. II. 110. source of, in the food, 443. II. refers to the Second Volume. Blood, agency of the, in realth and dis- Catamenia, what, II. 279. ease, II. 159. spongy, use of, in olfaction, 107. Bosjesman female, generative organs nates of the, II. 208. decussation of the, 306. movements of the, 62. ratio of the weight of the, to Byron, admiral, effects of prolonged hunger on, 462. lord's, picture of suffering from shipwreck, 464. C. Calcium, where found, 14. Caloric, laws of, II. 170. Caucasian race, II. 465. Chabert, M., his resistance to heat, 79, Cheese, nutritive properties of, 449. Childhood, age of, II. 393. in arteries, II. 139. Cold, effects of severe, II. 176. of the, II. 210. Colustrum, what, II. 337. Colours, accidental, 188. complimentary, 189. insensibility to, 210. opposite, 189. Combustibility, preternatural, II. 47. Combustion, spontaneous, II. 47. Commodus, his feats, 295. Composition of man, 12. Conception at different ages, II. 318. at different seasons, II,318. 1 |