Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1869-08-13
Death from . scIentItlc Point Of View.

IT is law of nature that whatever has
beginning must also have an end, the
idea of death itself being associated with
birth. fH ~.
But this term of life, the moment that
reduces to inert matter the body which
life had animated, may arrive sooner or
later, accidentally or naturally.
Accidental death happens when one of
the essential organs of life, from some
cause or other, ceases to act; these prin-
cipal organs being the brain, lungs end
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 cease ,
then life is extinct
Accidental death, therefore, is all the
more rapid from its cause acting more i'm
mediately on the circulating centre Il NAV
happen at all ages, although it is much
more frequent In the earlier than the later
stages of existence.
Natural death is much rarer; accidents
or disease almost always consuming life
before the period primitively fixed upon
by Nature
1t may also happen at more or less ad-
vanced 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
developed in the embryo life seems to
march from the heart to the remoter or
gans, but in the old man IL gradually for
sakes his body from the circumference to
the center. Then the members, becom-
ing 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
ylscOus sweati the face assumes a charac-
terlstic aspect, and appears emaciated ;
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 discolored lips
are parted and puokered. The voice, like
thought, becomes incoherens; the ewes
lose their powers of vision, and the olfac-
tory nerves are insensible TO odors; but
hearing is among the last of the faculties
that leave him. The abdominal and pee
toral viscera cease to fulfil their functions,
drinks fall into the esophagus as into an
inert tube; breathing becomes short, slow,
and irregular, now suspended, now re-
newed, terminating finally in the last gasp.
The pulse beats rapidly but fainter and
fainter, offering numerous remittances un-
til It ceases TO be appreciable. The heart
still continues beating feebly and irregu-
larry, and It's last contraction marks the
moment that separates life from death. No
vestige of life now remains, except in GER
tain tissues, which, even for some time
after death, retain organic properties; the
capillaries are contracted, so as to
drive into the veins all the blood
they contain; the irritability of the
muscles Is demonstrated when placed un-
der the influence of the v0ltaic pile.
These last phenomena of life soon dfsap-
pear, then the blood decompOses, its liquid
parts infiltrating the tissues, and its solid
elements being deposited either on the
heart or on the sides of the vessels Then
follows decomposition, which slowly and
mysteriously reduces the whole to water,
carbonic acid and ammonia being the pro
ducts into which are resolved all animal
matters in state Of putrefaction. These
matters or complex composition return 10
the inorganic combinations which enabled
the plants to elaborate them; thus the
study of putrefaetion, at first so revolving,
acquires a special philosophical interest,
while revealing TO us cf1ainwork of phe-
nomena admirable on account of its beau
tiful simplicity-AppIetOH's JoUrttdl. 1l r