Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-08-31
Death from Scientific Point Of View.

Death from a Scientific Point Of View
1t is law of nature that whatever
has a beginning must also have an
end, the idea of death itself being
associated with birth.
Bat this term of life, the moment
that reduces to inert matter the BODY
which life had animated, may arrive
sooner or later, accidentally or nat>
urally.
Accidentally 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 yet life continue; breathing
may be for some time suspended,
and yet life linger within but when
the beating of the heart ceases, then
life is extinct.
Accidental death, therefore, is all
the more rapid from its cause acting
more Immediately on the circulating
centre; it may happen at all ages
although it is much more frequent
in the earlier than the later stages
of existence.
Natural death is much rarer ac-
cidents or disease almost always con.
suming life before the period print
lively fixed upon by Nature.
1t may also happen at a more or
less advanced age, according to the
peculiarities OF constitution, 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 had been devel-
oped in the embryo life seems
to march from the heart to the re-
moter organs, but in the old man it
gradually forsakes his body from the
circumference TO the center. Then
the members, becoming motionless,
and obeying the law of heaviness,
lose their sensibility and heat and
the muscles no longer obey the will,
even if the will exist the skin be-
comes cold and dry, or is covered
with Visoious sweat; the face as
sumes a characteristic aspect, and
appears emaciated F; the eyes with>
draw deep into their orbits, the cor
nea is unsettled, the eyelids are half
closed by the lowering of the upper
one, tho cheek bones become promi>
nent, the nose droops, and the dis
colored lips are.parted and puckered
The voice, like thought, becomes
incoherent; the eyes lose their pow
err Of vision, and the olfactory nerves
are insensible to odors but hearing
IS among the last of the faculties
that leave him. The abdominal and
pectOral viscera cease to fulfill their
functions, drinks fall into the feso-
phagus as into an inert tube breath
ing becomes short, slow and irregu-
lar, now suspended, now renewed
terminating finally in the last gasp.
The pulse beats rapidly but fainter
and fainter, offering numerous remit
tances until it ceases to be appecia~
bic. The heart still continues beat
ing feebly and irregularly, and its
last contraction marks the moment
that separates life. from death. No
vestige of life now remains, except
in certain tissues, which, even for
some time after death, retain organic
properties; the capilaries are con-
tracted, so as to drive into the veins
all the blood they contain the ir~
ritability OF the muscles is demons
strated when placed under the infu-
tnce of the voltaic pile. The last
phenomena Of life soon disappear,
then the blood decomposes, is liquid
parts iuiltering the tissues, and its
solid clements being deposited either
on the heart or on the sides Of the
vessels. Then follows decomposi,
ton, which slowly aud mysteriously
reduces the whole to water, carbonic
acid and amonia being the pTo>
duets into which are resolved all an.
imai matters in state of putrefac-
ton. These matters Of complex
composition return to the inorganic
combination which enabled the
plants to elaborate them; thus the
study of putrefaction, at first so re-
voting, acquires special philosoph-
zeal interest, while revealing to US q
chainwork Of phenomena admirable
on account Of its BEAUTIFUL simplicity.
-Appleton'8 Journal.
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