What I noticed, and what I’m sure the others occupied in the dance did not, was the complete lack of a cough, a grunt, or even a quickening of breath coming from the patient. Sliding a tube up and down the trachea is one of the most noxious stimuli that can be applied to any live body, so noxious that it stimulates certain obligatory reactions. Awake but paralyzed persons tear profusely. Comatose people flinch and cough weakly. The dead are dead to it, and our guy hadn’t even flinched.
