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Show HOW TO BE SURE OF DEATH Maryland Board of Medical Examine era Gives the Correct Answer to Question. Whnt nro tho means used to provo that death has positively occurred? was n question put to postulants by the stnte board of medical examiners) of Maryland ut the June examinations. Tho correct answer Is given ns: "The complete and permanent cessation of circulation nnd respiration, rigor mortis, mor-tis, loss of bodily heat, pallor of tho body, putrefaction." Rigor mortis, the condition of rigidity rigid-ity Into which tho muscles pnss after death, begins ut n time varying from about fifteen minutes to about six hours. It begins In the fnce and progresses prog-resses downward, nnd the muscles re-lax re-lax In about tho same order after 24 hours. In a recent artlclo In America Dr, Austin O'Mnlley pointed out that It was often Impossible to tell at what moment death occurred, nnd that physicians wero so often In doubt about this that it Is n rulo for priests to administer tho last sacraments (conditionally, of course) even Boverol hours ufter apparent death, there being be-ing many cases on record In which a person believed to bo dead has revived. |