In medical jurisprudence. A morbid condition of swooning, suffocation, or suspended” animation, resulting in death if not relieved, produced by any serious interference with normal respiration (as, the inhalation of poisonous gases or too rarified air, choking, drowning, obstruction of the air passages, or paralysis of the respiratory muscles) with a consequent deficiency of oxygen in the blood. See State v. Baldwin, 36 Kan. 1, 12 Pac. 328.