The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-09-02
From Appleton's Journal.
Death from a Scientific point
of View.

1t is a law of nature that whatever has
beginning must also have an end, the
idea of death itself being associated with
birth. SCI
But this term of life, the moment that
reduces to inert matter the body which
life has animated, may arrive sooner or lat
er, accidentally or naturally.
Accidental death happens when one of
| the essential organs of life, from some cause
or other, ceases to act these principal
organs being the brain, lungs and heart.
The action of the brain, however. may
be almost wholly suppressed, and life con-
t1nue; breathing may be for some time
suspended, and yet life linger within
but when the beatings of the heart cease,
then life is extinct. 6sscrs.b aw
Accidental death, therefore, is all the
more rapid from its cause acting more i'm.
mediately on the circulating center; it
may happen at all ages, although it is
much more frequent in the earlier than
the later stages of sexistence. Natural
death is much ra1er; accidents or disease
almost always consuming life before the
period fixed upon by nature.
IL may also happen at more advanced
age, according to the peculia1ities of con-
stitution, sex, race, climate etc. When the
work of destruction follows its usual
course, life departs in an opposite sense
from the one in which it has been devel-
ped in the embryo life seems to march
from the heart to the remoter organs, but
in old men it gradually forsaks the body
from the circumference to the center.
Then the members, becoming motionless
and obeying the law of heaviness, lose
sensibility and heat; and the muscles no
longer obey the will, even if the will ex-
lists; the skin becomes cold and dry,or COW
cred with viscous sweat; the face as
sl!nles a characteristic aspect, and appears
enlaciated the eyes withdraw deep into
their orbits, the cornea is unsettled, the
eyelids are half closed by the lowering
of the upper one, the cheek bones become
prominent, the nose droops, and the dis
colored lips are parted and puckered.
The voice, like thought, becomes inco-
herent; the eyes lose their powers OF Wis
ion, and the olfactory nerves are insensi-
BILE to odors but hearing rs among the
last of the faculties to leave him. The
abdominal and pectoral viscera cease to
fulfil their functions, drinks fall into the
esophagus as into an inert tube; breath
ing becomes short, slow, and irregular,
now suspended, and now renewed, termi-
ating finally in the last gasp. The
pulse beats rapidly but fainter and faint
er, Offering numerous remittences until it
ceases to be appreciable. The heart still
continues beating feebly and irregularly
and it's last contraction marks the moment
that separates life from death. No YES
tige of life now remains except in certain
tissues, which, even for some time after
death, retain organic properties; the cap
ilaries are contracted, so as to drive into
the veins all the blood they contain; the
irritabiIlty of the muscles is demonstrate
ed when placed under the influence of
the voltaic pile; the uterus can eXpel the
| infant within, after the heart has ceased
to beat, etc. These phenomena OF life
soon disappear, then the blood decom-
poses, its liquid parts infltrating the It's
sues, and it's solid elements are deposited
either on the heart or on the sides of the
vessels. Then follows decomposition,
which slowly and surely reduces the
whole to water, carbonic acid and ammo.
MIA, being the products into which are re
solved all animal matters in state of
putrefaction These matters of complex
composition return to the inorganic COM
binations which enable the plants to elab-
orte them thus the study of putrefaction,
at first so revolving, acquires a special
philosophical interest, while revealing g
chainwork Of phenomena admirable on
account of its beautiful simplicity.