DROWNING, the act of suffocating, or being suffocated, by water.
Naturalists and physicians furnish us with divers well attested instances of surprising recoveries of persons drowned. It is certain from repeated dissections made on persons drowned, that they generally have less water in their stomachs than if they had voluntarily drunk a considerable quantity: whence it does not seem expedient to hang the drowned person by the heels, a position that must prove uneasy as soon as the humours of the body should resume their ordinary motion. In order to know whether the person has swallowed too
much water or not, and to make him vomit it up if he has, it is proper to put him in a tun, open at both ends, which is to be rolled in different directions: or the bearded end of a feather should be introduced into the œsophagus. After taking off the cloaths of the drowned person, we ought, with the utmost expedition, to shelter him from the impressions of the cold air, and begin to warm him, by wrapping him up with cloaths and coverings: to do this more effectually, he is afterwards to be put into a pretty warm bed, applying also to his body hot napkins and cloths. A hot scorching sun, to which drowned persons have been exposed, and hot baths, have produced the same happy effects.
The great intention to be pursued is, to put the solid parts of the machine in action, that thus they may restore the motion of the fluids: in order to this, the drowned person should be agitated in various directions, in a bed, in the arms of persons of sufficient strength.
Spirituous liquors should be poured into his mouth, or warm urine; and some persons prescribe a decoction of pepper and vinegar, as a gargarism: we must also attempt to irritate the internal fibres of the nose, either by volatile spirits, and by the liquors used in apoplectic cases; or by tickling the nerves of the nostrils with a bearded feather; or by blowing, through a quill, snuff, or some other more powerful sternutatory. One of the means frequently used with success, is to blow warm air, by means of a pipe, into their mouths; or to introduce it by a pair of bellows; or, by injecting warm clysters, to irritate the intestines: the smoke of tobacco conveyed into the intestines, by means of a tobacco pipe, is much recommended. Venesection is by no means to be neglected; and perhaps most successfully in the jugular vein.