calves, sheep and lambs, deer, hares, rabbits, turkeys, ducks, chickens, pheasants, grouse, and partridges, down to the larks and sparrows and blackbirds, which I had shot when a boy and made into puddings. Every one of them had come up to bear witness against their murderer; out of sea and river had come the trout and salmon, the soles and turbots, the ling and cod, the whiting and mackerel, the smelts and whitebait, the oysters, the crabs, the lobsters, the shrimps. They seemed literally to be in millions, and I had eaten them all. I talked of wages. These had been my wages. At this enormous cost had my existence been maintained. A large ox spoke for the rest. We all," he said, were sacrificed to keep this cormorant in being, and to enable him to produce the miserable bits of printed paper which are all that he has to show for himself. Our lives were dear to us. In meadow and wood, in air and water, we wandered harmless and innocent, enjoying the pleasant sunlight, the light of heaven and the sparkling waves; we were not worth much; we have no pretensions to high qualities. If the person who stands here to answer for himself can affirm that his value in the universe was equivalent to the value of all of us who were sacrificed to feed him, we have no more to say. Let it be so pronounced. We shall look at our numbers, and we shall wonder on the judgment, but we shall withdraw our complaint. But for ourselves we say freely that we have long watched him him and his fellows-and we have failed to see in what the superiority of the human creature lies. We know him only as the most cunning, the most destructive, and, unhappily, the longest-lived of all carnivorous beasts. His delight is in killing. Even when his hunger is satisfied he kills us for his mere amusement." The oxen lowed approval, the sheep bleated, the birds screamed, the fishes flapped their tails. I, for myself, stood mute and self-condemned. What answer but one was possible? Had I been myself on the bench I could not have hesitated. I heard my sentence: "You passed your first examination by mistake; you must go back to the place from which you came, and when you appear again before us may you have a better account to render of yourself. This only we can allow you. Though you have been unworthy, you have not been wholly unworthy. Against this array of accusation a small fraction of good desert is standing to your credit. Therefore it shall be with you as if you had not been stopped at this station for the present. You shall not begin a new existence again in some other form to devour fresh hundreds of thousands of creatures like these that have come to witness against you; you shall take up your life where it was dropped and finish it to its natural end, and if you can find any better employment for your remaining years than that of book writing, I advise you to take to it."— Fraser's Magazine. SUSPENDED ANIMATION. BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A. SOME time since an article appeared in the Times, quoted from the Brisbane Courier (an Australian paper of good credit), stating that one Signor Rotura had devised a plan by which animals might be congealed for weeks or months without being actually deprived of life, so that they might be shipped from Australia for English ports as dead meat, yet on their arrival here be restored to full life and activity. Many regarded this account as intended to be received seriously, though a few days later an article appeared, the opening words of which implied that only persons from north of the Tweed should have taken the article au grand sérieux. Of course it was a hoax; but it is worthy of notice that the editor of the Brisbane Courier had really been misled, as he admitted a few weeks later, with a candor which did him credit. This wonderful discovery, however, besides being worth publishing as a joke (though rather a mischievous one, as will presently be shown), did good ser SUSPENDED ANIMATION. vice also by eliciting from a distinguished physician certain statements respecting the possibility of suspending animation, which otherwise might have remained for some time unpublished. I propose here to consider these statements, and the strange possibilities which some of them seem to suggest. In the first place, however, it may be worth while to recall the chief statements in the clever Australian story, as some of Dr. Richardson's statements refer specially to that narrative. I shall take the opportunity of indicating certain curious features of resemblance between the Australian story, which really had its origin in America (I am assured that it was published a year earlier in a New York paper), and an American hoax which acquired a wide celebrity some forty years ago, the socalled Lunar Hoax. As it is certain that the two stories came from different persons, the resemblance referred to seems to suggest that the special mental qualities (defects, bien entendu) which cause some to take delight in such inventions, are commonly associated with a characteristic style of writing. If Buffon was right, indeed, in saying, Le style c'est de l'homme même, we can readily understand that clever hoaxers should thus have a style peculiar to themselves. It can hardly be considered essential to the right comprehension of scientific experiments that a picturesque account should be given of the place where the experiments were made. The history of the wonderful Australian discovery opens, nevertheless, as follows: "Many of the readers of the Brisbane Courier who know Sydney Harbor will remember the long inlet opposite the heads known as Middle Harbor, which, in a succession of landlocked reaches, stretches away like a chain of lakes for over twenty miles. On one of these reaches, made more than ordinarily picturesque by the bold headlands that drop almost sheer into the water, stand, on about an acre of grassy flat, fringed by white beach on which the clear waters of the harbor lap, two low brick buildings. Here, in perfect seclusion, and with a careful avoidance of publicity, is being conducted an experiment, the success of which, now established beyond any doubt, must have a wider effect 51 upon the future prosperity of Australia than any project ever contemplated." It was precisely in this tone that the author of the "Lunar Hoax" * opened his account of those "recent discoveries in astronomy which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud distinction through all future time.' "It has been poetically said," he remarks-though probably he would have found some difficulty in saying where or by whom this had been said" that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation; he may now fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental supreinacy" (a sublime idea, irresistibly suggestive of the description which an American humorist gave of a certain actor's representation of the death of Richard III., "he wrapped the star-spangled banner round him, and died like the son of a hoss"). It next becomes necessary to describe the persons engaged in pursuing the experiments by which the art of freezing animals alive is to be attained. "The gentlemen engaged in this enterprise are Signor Rotura, whose researches into the botany and natural history of South America have rendered his name eminent, and Mr. James Grant, a pupil of the late Mr. Nicolle, so long associated with Mr. Thomas Mort in his freezing process. Next to the late Mr. Nicolle, Mr. James Grant can claim pre-eminence of knowledge in the science of generating cold, and his freezing chamber at Woolhara has long been known as the seat of valuable experiments originated in his, Mr. Nicolle's, lifetime." Is it merely an accident, by the way, or is it due to the circumstance that exceptional are often found in company with singupowers of invention in general matters lar poverty of invention as to details, that two of the names here mentioned closely resemble names connected with the Lunar Hoax? It was Nicollet who in reality devised the Lunar Hoax, though Richard Alton Locke, the reput reader is referred to my "Myths and Marvels *For a full account of this clever hoax the of Astronomy." ed author, probably gave to the story its final form; and, again, the story purported to come from Dr. Grant, of Glasgow. In the earlier narrative, again, as in the later, due care was taken to impress readers with the belief that those who had made the discovery, or taken part in the work, were worthy of all confidence. Sir W. Herschel was the inventor of the optical device by which the inhabitants of the moon were to be rendered visible, a plan which" evinced the most profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood, determined upon testing it at whatever cost. Among his companions he had "Dr. Andrew Grant, Lieutenant Drummond, of the Royal Engineers, and a large party of the best English mechanics.' 66 till I have shown how closely in several respects this portion of the Australian hoax resembles the corresponding part of the American story. It will be observed that the great discovery is presented as simply a very surprising development of a process which is strictly within the limits, not only of what is possible, but of what is known. So also in the case of the Lunar Hoax, the amazing magnifying power by which living creatures in the moon were said to have been rendered visible, was presented as simply a very remarkable development of the familiar properties of the telescope. In both cases the circumstances which in reality limit the possible extension of the properties in question were kept conveniently concealed from view. In both cases doubts and difficulties were urged with an apparent frankness intended to disarm suspicion. In both cases, also, the inventor of the new method by which difficulties were to be overcome is represented as in conference with a man of nearly equal skill, who urges the doubts naturally suggested by the wonderful nature of the promised achievements. In the Lunar Hoax, Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster are thus represented in conference. Herschel asks whether the difficulty arising from deficient illumination may not be overcome by effecting a transfusion of artificial light through the focal image. The accounts of preliminary researches, doubts, and difficulties are in both cases very similar in tone. It appears that five months ago," says the narrator of the Australian hoax, "Signor Rotura called upon Mr. Grant to invoke his assistance in a scheme for the transmission of live stock to Europe. Signor Rotura averred that he had discovered a South American vegetable poison, allied to the well-known woolara (sic) that had the power of perfectly sus pending animation, and that the trance Brewster, startled at the thus produced continued until the appli- novel thought, as he well might be, hesication of another vegetable essence tatingly refers to the refrangibility of caused the blood to resume its circula- rays and the angle of incidence," which tion and the heart its functions. So is effective though glorious in its absurdperfect, moreover, was this suspension ity. (Yet it has been gravely asserted of life that Signor Rotura had found in that this nonsense deceived Arago.) a warm climate decomposition set in at "Sir John, grown more confident, adthe extremities after a week of this liv- duced the example of the Newtonian re ing death, and he imagined that if the flector, in which the refrangibility was body in this inert state were reduced to arrested by the second speculum and the a temperature sufficiently low to arrest angle of incidence restored by the third" decomposition, the trance might be kept (a bewilderingly ridiculous statement). up for months, possibly for years. He frankly owned that he had never tried this preserving of the tissues by cold, and could not confidently speak as to its effect upon the after-restoration of the animal operated on. Before he left Mr. Grant he had turned that gentleman's doubts into wondering curiosity by experimenting on his dog." The account of this experiment I defer for a moment And,' continued he, why cannot the illuminated microscope, say the hydrooxygen, be applied to render distinct, and, if necessary, even to magnify, the focal object?' Sir David sprang from his chair in an ecstasy of conviction, and leaping half way to the ceiling" (from which we may infer that he was somewhat more than tête montée), claimed, 'Thou art the man!' ex * The method devised in each case being once accepted as sound, the rest of course readily follows. In the case of the Lunar Hoax a number of discoveries are made which need not here be described (though I shall take occasion presently to quote some passages relating to them which closely resemble in style certain passages in the Australian narrative). In the later hoax, the illustrative experiments are forthwith introduced. Signor Rotura, having so far persuaded Mr. Grant of the validity of the plan as to induce him to allow a favorite dog to be experimented upon, "injected two drops of his liquid, mixed with a little glycerine, into a small puncture made in the dog's ear. In three or four minutes the animal was perfectly rigid, the four legs stretched backward, eyes wide open, pupils very much dilated, and exhibiting symptoms very similar to those caused by strychnine, except that there had been no previous struggle or pain. Begging his owner to have no apprehension for the life of his favorite animal, Signor Rotura lifted the dog carefully and placed him on a shelf in a cupboard, where he begged he might be left till the following day, when he promised to call at ten o'clock and revive the apparently dead brute. Mr. Grant continually during that day and night visited the cupboard, and so perfectly was life suspended in his favorite -no motion of the pulse or heart giving any indication of the possibility of revival-that he confesses he felt all the sharpest reproaches of remorse at having sacrificed a faithful friend to a doubtful and dangerous experiment. The temperature of the body, too, in the first four hours gradually lowered to 25 degrees Fahrenheit below ordinary blood temperature, which increased his fears as to the result; and by morning the body was as cold as in natural death. At ten o'clock next morning, according to promise, Signor Rotura presented himself, and laughing at Mr. Grant's fears, requested a tub of warm water to be brought. He tested this with the thermometer at 32 degrees Fahrenheit" (which, being the temperature of freezing water, can hardly be called warm), * The most curious are given in the ninth essay of my work referred to in the preceding note. 46 "and in this laid the dog, head under."' In reply to Mr. Grant's objections, Signor Rotura assured him that, as animation must remain entirely suspended until the administration of the antidote, no water could be drawn into the lungs, and that the inmersion of the body was simply to bring it again to a blood-heat. After about ten minutes of this bath the body was taken out, and another liquid injected in a puncture made in the neck. "Mr. Grant tells me," proceeds the veracious narrator, "that the revival of Turk was the most startling thing he ever witnessed; and having since seen the experiment made upon a sheep, I can fully confirm his statement. The dog first showed the return of life in the eye" (winking, doubtless, at the joke), and after five and a half minutes he drew a long breath, and the rigidity left his limbs. In a few minutes more he commenced gently wagging his tail, and then slowly got up, stretched himself, and trotted off as though nothing had happened." From this moment Mr. Grant had full faith in Signor Rotura's discovery, and promised him all the assistance in his power. They next determined to try freezing the body. But the first two experiments were not encouraging. Mr. Grant fortunately did not allow his favorite dog to be experimented upon further, so a strange dog was put into the freezing room at Mr. Grant's works for four days, after having in the first place had his animation suspended by Signor Rotura. Although this animal survived so far as to draw a long breath, the vital energies appeared too exhausted for a complete rally, and the animal died. So also did the next two animals experimented on—a cat and a dog. "In the meantime, however, Dr. Barker had been taken into their counsels, and at his suggestion respiration was encouraged, as in the case of persons drowned, by artificial compression and expansion of the lungs. Dr. Barker was of opinion that, as the heart in every case began to beat, it was a want of vital force to set the lungs in proper motion that caused death. The result showed his surmises to be entirely correct. A number of animals whose lives had been sealed up in this artificial death have been kept in the freezing chamber from one to five weeks, and it is found that though the I need not follow the hoaxer's account of the buildings erected for the further prosecution of these researches. One point, however, may be mentioned illustrating the resemblance to which I have already referred as existing between this Australian narrative and the Lunar Hoax. In describing the works erected at Middle Harbor, the Australian account carefully notes that the necessary funds were provided by Mr. Christopher Newton, of Pitt Street. In like manner, in the Lunar Hoax we are told that the plate-glass required for the optical arrangement devised by Sir J. Herschel was obtained, by consent be it observed, from the shop-window of M. Desanges, the jeweller to his ex-majesty Charles X., in High Street." Now comes the culminating experiment, the circumstances of which are the more worthy of being carefully noted, because it is distinctly stated by Dr. Richardson that none of the experiments described in this narrative, apocryphal though they may really be, can be regarded as beyond the range of scientific possibilities: Arrived at the works in Middle Harbor, I was taken into the building that contains Mr. Grant's apparatus for generating cold. At tached to this is the freezing chamber, a small, dark room, about eight feet by ten. Here were fourteen sheep, four lambs, and three pigs, stacked on their sides in a heap, alive, which Mr. Grant told me had been in their present position for nineteen days, and were to remain there for another three months. Selecting one of the lambs, Signor Rotura put it on his shoulder, and carried it outside into the other building, where a number of shallow cemented tanks were in the floor, having hot and cold water taps to each tank, with a thermometer hanging alongside. One of these tanks was quickly filled, and its temperature tested by the Signor, I meantime examining with the greatest curiosity and wonder the nineteen-days-dead lamb. The days of miracles truly seem to have come back to us, and many of those stories discarded as absurdities seem to me less improbable than this fact, witnessed by myself. There was the lamb, to all appearance dead, and as hard almost as a stone, the only difference perceptible to me between his condition and actual death being the absence of dull glassiness about the eye, which still retained its brilliant transparency. Indeed, this brilliancy of the eye, which is heightened by the enlargement of the pupil, is very striking, and lends a rather weird appearance to the bodies. The lamb was gently dropped into the warm bath, and was allowed to remain in it about twenty-three minutes, its head being raised above the water twice for the introduction of the thermometer into its mouth, and then it was taken out and placed on its side on the floor, Signor Rotura quickly dividing the wool on its neck, and inserting the sharp point of a small silver syringe under the skin and injecting the antidote. This was a pale green liquid, and, as I believe, a decoction from the root of the Astracharlis, found in South America. The lamb was then turned on its back, Signor Rotura standing across it, gently compressing its ribs with his knees and hands in such a manner as to imitate their natural depression and expansion during breathing. In ten minutes the animal was struggling to free itself, and when released skipped out through the door and went gambolling and bleating over the little garden in front. Nothing has ever impressed me so entirely with a sense of the marvellous. One is almost tempted to ask, in the presence of such a discovery, whether death itself may not ultimately be baffled by scientific investigation.' In the Lunar Hoax there is a passage resembling in tone the lively account of the lamb's behavior when released. Herds of agile creatures like antelopes were seen in the moon, 66 abounding in the acclivitous glades of the woods. 'This beautiful creature afforded us," says the narrator, "the most exquisite amusement. The mimicry of its movements upon our whitepainted canvas was as faithful and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of the camera obscura. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon its beard, it would suddenly bound away, as if conscious of our earthly impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent nibbling the herbage, say or do to them |