is invited to attend, but is left to form his

judgment, as if on a case within the reach of decision and to exert or to forbear his applications, according to his humour or his opi nion.

The writer, who endeavours to shew, that Death or Suspended Animation is not a state incompatible with a return to Life, has perhaps best performed his purpose, when he has endeavoured to render familiar to his readers those conditions of the System, in which Life passess into Death, or into a state approaching indefinitely near to Death, and again Death passes into Life, as by a natural tho' morbid process of the Animal System. In many cases of Epileptic attacks, we know, that these changes from Life to Death, and from Death to Life, are sometimes exhibited in a periodical round, through the course of a long Life: We learn moreover, that in various instances, the constitution is but little injured in other respects by this recurrence of a Malady, which appears so formidable, and that the process of sinking into a state, which assumes almost every appearance of Death, is neither an obstacle to a return to Life, nor is it injurious to the powers, by which the business of Life is performed.

This habit or practice of dying and revive ing is acquired and continued by the operation of Nature; but we have seen instances, in which the same habit may be acquired by the exertions of the Will, co-operating. with a frame naturally disposed to admit such habits. This Art of Dying, as we have learnt, may be practiced in the most compleat manner, so as to deceive those, who are supposed to be most dexterous in deciding on the Signs of Death:-We have seen too, that the State of Death, even while it continues, does not stop the powers of Life in one of its greatest functions-the faculty of perception, nay, that in some cases it renders the sense of hearing more exquisite and acute.-We have seen that the Dead, or Persons, under all the appearances of Death, may be witness to the preparations for their own funeral.

All these facts irresistibly impress upon us the duty of considering Death, in Nervous Disorders, as a possible case of Suspended Animation, and of applying the Arts of the Resuscitative Process, with all the diligence and zeal, which are adopted in cases of Drowning by the Humane Societies. It is true, that a form of Death will at last attach itself to those

morbid frames, which must end in the Death of Putrefactive Dissolution; but as we know not, when that fatal Death has arrived, it is our bounden duty to employ all our devices for the purpose of discovering a fact of such momentous import.-The Death, which the patients have experienced, may be only the ordinary Death, to which they had been subject during the whole course of their lives, with no other difference, except in being accompanied by a state of debility, which has rendered them unable to recover, as they were wont, by their own powers; but which demands the assistance of Art to effect their accustomed revival.

This mode of conceiving the matter cannot, I imagine, be controverted, and it is marvellous, that such cases ever passed over the mind under any other point of view. It is indeed most marvellous, that the familiar Spectacle of the great Nervous Disorder, Epilepsy, should not have suggested a train of ideas totally opposite to those, which are at present received on this subject-We see Epileptics sinking periodically, as by a law of Nature, through a long course of time, into a state, which approaches indefinitely near to Kk 2 the

the condition called Death, and reviving again to Life :-Now on what principle of Science, or of plain good sense are we led to form the conclusion, which we all do form, when we perceive these Epileptics, weakened either by the Disorder, or by some other Malady, or by both causes, passing into the next condition of Death, the absence of apparent motion and sensation, almost undistinguishable from the former state?

Whence, I say, are we led to conclude, that these two states, so similar to each other in form, and sometimes directly passing into each other, are necessarily on all occasions, so dissimilar to each other, in kind and in degree?-Whence do we conclude, I again repeat, that this second condition of Death, forming almost an imperceptible link in the chain of appearances, and as far as we know of causes and effects, bears no relation whatever to the preceding accustomary state of the Epileptic, which is generally connected with a recovery to Life, but that this apparently kindred condition is altogether of an opposite nature to the first, so as to be wholly incompatible with recovery to Life, as if by the infliction of some superadded organical

injury to the frame, which is necessarily involved, without Remedy or Hope, in final and Putrefactive Death?

I shall now give the just conclusion, as it appears to me, which ought to be drawn on this occasion from what happens to those, who are afflicted by Nervous Maladies, Epilepsy &c. and who may be said to Die and to Live again, frequently or periodically in the course of their Lives. This Conclusion may be expressed in the following propositions. 1st. That a state of the frame most similar to Death is a natural Disorder of the frame. 2nd. That Death itself is probably likewise on some occasions a natural Disorder of the frame, and more especially when the frame is under the influence of Nervous Maladies. 3rd. That this state of Death may be sometimes only a degree of debility beyond that, which produced the state nearly approaching to Death. 4th. That as the frame is enabled to recover itself from this state approaching nearly to Death by its own efforts; so probably in the condition of Death, when the debility has proceeded to a degree beyond this state, the frame may be restored to Life, by some assistance from the devices of Art.

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