China as the result of deep scientific research;
but whether the educated classes--more especially those individuals
who devote themselves in the course of their official duties to the
theory and practice of _post mortem_ examinations--can be equally
gulled with the gaping crowd around them, we may safely leave our
readers to decide for themselves.
INQUESTS, NO. II
Section IV. of the valuable work which formed the basis of our
preceding sketch, is devoted to the enumeration of methods for
restoring human life after such casualties as drowning, hanging,
poisoning, &c., some hours and even days after vitality has to all
appearances ceased. We shall quote as before from our own literal
translation.
"Where a man has been hanging from morning to night, even though
already cold, a recovery may still be effected. Stop up the
patient's mouth tightly with your hand, and in a little over four
hours respiration will be restored. _Or_, Take equal parts of
finely-powdered soap-bean and anemone hepatica, and blow a
quantity of this--about as much as a bean--into the patient's
nostrils.
"In all cases where men or women have been hanged, a recovery may
be effected even if the body has become stiff. You must not cut
the body down, but, supporting it, untie the rope and lay it down
in some smooth place on its back with the head propped up. Bend
the arms and legs gently, and let some one sitting behind pull the
patient's hair tightly. Straighten the arms, let there be a free
passage through the wind-pipe, and let two persons blow
incessantly into the ears through a bamboo tube or reed, rubbing
the chest all the time with the hand. Take the blood from a live
fowl's comb, and drop it into the throat and nostrils--the left
nostril of a woman, the right of a man; also using a cock's comb
for a man, a hen's for a woman. Re-animation will be immediately
effected. If respiration has been suspended for a long time, there
must be plenty of blowing and rubbing; do not think that because
the body is cold all is necessarily over.
"Where a man has been in the water a whole night, a recovery may
still be effected. Break up part of a mud wall and pound it to
dust; lay the patient thereon on his back, and cover him up with
the same, excepting only his mouth and eyes. Thus the water will
be absorbed by the mud, and life will be restored. This method is
a very sure one, even though
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