Carpe diem

“ For it is laid down by Diemebrooeck, in Opposition to the common Opinion, that a Carbuncle is nothing else but an actual Gangrene; for if any Credit may be given to our Experience, which we look upon to be as well founded as that of this great Man, I do not remember any Carbuncles (unless where there hath some manifest Error been committed in external Applications, or the Virulence of the Pestilence hath been greater than ordinary) to have tended more to a Sphacelation, than any other Consequences of the pestilential Poison. ”

“ This indeed, he saw, above, and himself marvelled; but below, when Carpus had bent down, he affirmed that he saw the very foundation ripped in two, to a sort of yawning and dark chasm, and those very men, upon whom he had invoked a curse, standing before his eyes, within the mouth of the chasm, trembling, pitiful, only just not yet carried down by the mere slipping of their feet ”

“ He advanced, sneering and caustic, pushed them all rudely aside, dropped on his knees beside the corpse, and, thrusting his finger forcibly into its mouth, appeared to hook and roll its tongue forward. Instantly an amazing transformation occurred. A convulsion shook the body; life flowed into its drab cheeks; its eyes opened and rolled; inarticulate sounds came from its jaws.
“Ha!” cried the old man; “I have foreclosed on these busybodies.”
Then he rose to his feet, leaving the patient yawning and stretching on the floor.
“Fearful!” gasped the clergyman.
“Do you address me, sir?” ”

“ Though necessarily there is little quite direct evidence, for the actual moment of death, yet in the just preceding stage, of extreme weakness, the sensation of depletion in every part of the body, and of withdrawal, as of a hand being drawn out of a glove, is very noticeable. (And it may be remarked that clairvoyants not unfrequently observe, at death itself, 181 a luminous cloud of the general outline and shape of the dying person being slowly distilled, head first, from his or her head.) ”

“ Post-Mortem Appearances in Cases of Death by Cobra-bite.
Rigor mortis generally comeson about the usual time and is as well marked as it is in death from ordinary causes. The blood in man is fluid, as a rule, and in the lower animals coagulated. If examined directly after death no changes can be recognised by the microscope. After a time the corpuscles may change in shape, become crenated, and blood-crystals may form, but at the moment of death no change can be recognised. The parotid glands may be swollen. The brain presents no marked deviation from normal. ”

“ Thus in the island of Carpathus people never button the clothes they put upon a dead body and they are careful to remove all rings from it; “for the spirit, they say, can even be detained in the little finger, and cannot rest.” Here it is plain that even if the soul is not definitely supposed to issue at death from the finger-tips, yet the ring is conceived to exercise a certain constrictive influence which detains and imprisons the immortal spirit in spite of its efforts to escape from the tabernacle of clay ”

“ An excess of Kapham in the body is marked by such symptoms, as the whiteness, coldness and numbness of the body, heaviness of the limbs, a sense of drowsiness and languor, somnolence, and a feeling of looseness of the bone-joints.
Similarly, an increased germination of lymph chyle (Rasa) in the body is manifest by such characteristics as, nausea, water-brash, and an increased flow of salivary secretion. A plethora of blood in the system gives a reddish glow to the complexion and the white of the eyes, and imparts fullness to the veins. ”

“ Soon after, the plague infected the army, and swept away a great number of the soldiers, and the general himself. The Carthaginians interpreted this disaster as a punishment inflicted by the gods, who revenged in this manner the injuries done to the dead, whose ghosts many fancied they had seen stalking before them in the night. No more tombs were therefore demolished, prayers were ordered to be made according to the practice of Carthage; a child was sacrificed to Saturn, in compliance with a most inhuman superstitious custom; and many victims were thrown into the sea in honour of Neptune. ”

“ Carpathians, are sick and the owner attributes the sickness to witchcraft, he throws glowing coals into a vessel of water and then pours the water on a black dog; thus the sickness passes into the dog and the cattle are made whole.103 In Arabia, when the plague is raging, the people will sometimes lead a camel through all the quarters of the town in order that the animal may take the pestilence on itself. ”

“ Death was too strong to be resisted by his brute force and tenacious will. The purple blood gushed in a torrent from his mouth, the huge carcass swayed more heavily from side to side, the failing limbs shook in a final effort to support the weight of the body, the whole frame was seized with a convulsive quiver, and at last, with a choking gasp, the animal fell over, dead, silent, motionless and stiff. ”

“ It is to be a rapid death. The feet first grow cold. The clairvoyant sees over the head what may be called a magnetic halo—an etherial emanation, in appearance golden, and throbbing as though conscious. The body is now cold up to the knees and elbows, and the emanation has ascended higher in the air. The legs are cold to the hips and the arms to the shoulders; and the emanation, though it has not risen higher in the room, is more expanded. The death-coldness steals over the breast and round on either side, and the emanation has attained a higher position nearer the ceiling. ”

“ Carpentaria, there is only one absolutely reliable symptom of death, and that is—putrefaction. Death is imitated by various diseases. But there are not many that will imitate the coldness of death as catalepsy will. ”

“ He cannot really die again. His Body and Blood cannot really be separated, for His glorious risen Body cannot suffer any more—it is immortal. But in the Mass the Bread is first changed into our Lord's Body, and then the Wine is changed into His Blood. Thus it looks as though the Body and Blood were separated, and this recalls the real separation, the real shedding of our Lord's Blood on Mount Calvary. ”

“ Krebs, in German, Cancer, in Latin, French, and English, Carcinoma, in Greek, all alike mean "Crab," a ghastly, flesh-eating parasite, gnawing its way into the body. The simile is sufficiently obvious. The hard mass is the body of the beast; the pain of the growth is due to his bite; the hard ridges of scar tissue which radiate in all directions into the surrounding skin are his claws. ”

“ In this case, therefore, the liver was evidently the principal seat of that lady’s complaints, and the pectoral symptoms, the hectic fever, and complete loss of strength, only secondary and aggravated by immoderate bleeding. Had the pulmonary affections been the primary disease, our waters would have undoubtedly accelerated her death, which seemed approaching, when she arrived at Carlsbad. ”

“ People die everywhere. But the Plague has never bothered me. And why has it never bothered me? Simply because I was sensible, took the pains to consult an astrologer, and by his advice wear about my neck, night and day, a bag containing tablets of toads' blood and arsenic. It is an infallible specific for men born in February. No, not for a moment do I wish to speak harshly of the dead, but sensible persons cannot but consider Lord Pevensey's death to have been caused by his own carelessness. ”

“ Can you form any judgment as to the cause of death in Cook’s case?—I cannot. No conclusion or inference can be drawn from the degree or kind of the contractions of the body after death.
Lord Campbell: Can you not say, from the symptoms you heard, whether death was produced by tetanus, without saying what was the cause of tetanus?
Witness: Hypothetically I should infer that he died of the form of tetanus which convulses the muscles. Great varieties of rigidity arise after death from natural causes. The half-bent hands and fingers are not uncommon after natural death. ”

“ Whenever a great artery is opened from any cause, permitting the copious outflow of blood, the skin grows pale, warmth declines, the breathing is intermittent, vertigo and dimness of sight follow, the expression of the features changes, cold and clammy sweat covers part of the face and the limbs, the pulse gets gradually weaker, and, at last, the heart stops. Virgil describes hæmorrhage with striking fidelity in the story of Dido's death. ”

“ MODE OF DEATH IN THE ACCIDENTS FROM CHLOROFORM. In all the cases in which the symptoms which occurred at the time of death are reported, there is every reason to conclude, as shown above, that death took place by cardiac syncope, or arrest of the action of the heart. ”

“ So it was the casks, and not the coffins, that had been knocking one against another; and I was pleased with myself, remembering how I had reasoned that coffin-wood could never give that booming sound.
It was plain enough that the whole place had been under water: the floor was still muddy, and the green and sweating walls showed the flood-mark within two feet of the roof; there was a wisp or two of fine seaweed that had somehow got in, and a small crab was still alive and scuttled across the corner, yet the coffins were but little disturbed. ”

“ These symptoms deepen with the increasing quantity of carbonic acid in the air respired until the utmost limit of toleration is reached, beyond which life can no longer be maintained. At this stage lethargy supervenes; and, at the moment of its occurrence, the heart begins to beat less frequently and much less powerfully than before. This condition is the parallel of that observed in the young trout, when the blood begins to accumulate and to coagulate in the auricle and ventricle, and when the heart's sensibility and contractility are reduced in the greatest degree. ”

“ In fourteen out of the thirty-five cases, in which an examination of the dead body took place, all the chief organs were found to be healthy, if we except the local congestions of blood connected with the mode of dying, and a flabby state of the heart in a few of the cases, which probably depended on its being full of blood at the time of death, or its not being in a state of post-mortem rigidity, at the time it was examined. ”

“ And if a dead Carcass hath life, and such a temperature of motions as belong to its own life, then there is no question, but these motions may move sometimes irregularly in a dead Carcass as well, as in any other Creature; and since health and diseases are nothing else but the regularity or irregularity of sensitive corporeal Motions, a dead Carcass having Irregular motions, may be said as well to have diseases, as a living body, as they name it, although it is no proper or usual term for other Creatures, but onely for Animals. ”

“ The following remark is made respecting the autopsy. “The post-mortem examination shewed that asphyxia, caused by chloroform, produced the death. There was a congestion both of the brain and lungs.” The appearances met with after death from chloroform do not indicate the way in which death has taken place. In animals that are killed by it, the right cavities of the heart are always found filled with blood, whether they die suddenly by its direct action on the heart, or more slowly by its effects on the brain, and the breathing ceases before the circulation. ”

“ Carpio, a legendary hero of the Moors of Spain; is said to have slain Roland at Roncesvalles.
Carpoc`rates, a Gnostic of Alexandria of the 2nd century, who believed in the transmigration of the soul and its final emancipation from all external bonds and obligations, by means of concentrated meditation on the divine unity, and a life in conformity therewith; was the founder of a sect called after his name. ”

“ Death is the inevitable termination, and occurs as a consequence of cardiac and respiratory syncope. It may follow suddenly as the result of a simple forced movement, even when the animal still seems to retain some amount of strength. When the organisms introduced into the pericardium are of marked virulence, complications such as septic pleurisy and pneumonia may be observed, and death soon takes place.
It has been suggested that recovery might follow a return of the foreign body towards the reticulum. ”

“ And death - All who died by any kind of disease. Death is here personified, and represented as a keeper of defunct human beings; probably no more than earth or the grave is meant, as properly belonging to the empire of death.
And hell - Ἁιδης, Hades, the place of separate spirits. The sea and death have the bodies of all human beings; hades has their spirits. That they may be judged, and punished or rewarded according to their works, their bodies and souls must be reunited; hades, therefore, gives up the spirits; and the sea and the earth give up the bodies. ”

“ The scepticism which lightly contradicts the Biblical narratives of the raising of the "dead" to life is seemingly ignorant of facts that go far to place these upon firm ground as historical occurrences. Catalepsy, [50] or the simulation of death by a trance, in which the body is sometimes cold and rigid, sensation gone, the heart still, is well known to medical men. [13] In early times such a condition would inevitably have been regarded and treated as actual death, without the least suspicion that it was not so. ”

“ It is to be remembered that a body decomposes more rapidly in air than in water or after burial. Given similar temperatures, the amount of putrefaction observed in a body dead one week and exposed to the air will about correspond to one submerged in water for two weeks or buried in a deep grave for eight weeks. ”