New York Times, September 14, 1914.
a remarkable new method of testing absolutely whether an apparently lead person is really dead and thus avoiding the possibility of premature burial...
Dr Icard's system depends on the question whether the blood is still in circulation or not, and consists of a subcutaneous injection of a small quantity of fluorescine, which is quite harmless, but one of the most violent coloring matters known.
If there be the slightest motion of the blood, the fluorescine, carried around the body, stains it a vivid golden yellow, while the eyes become a deep emerald green... Half an hour is stated to be enough to make the test.
The laity, while duly impressed by this neat method, are asking whether the persons who are alive and undergo the dyeing process, and who later recover, will lose the golden yellow tint and the green eyes, as Dr Icard describes them, "are transformed into superb emeralds, set like jewels in their sockets."
It may be added however, that fluorescine is one of the most transitory dyes known.
Fluorescein was first synthesized by Adolf von Baeyer in 1871. Fluorescein is a fluorophore -- a component of a molecule which causes a molecule to be fluorescent.
