, 1888-06-28
CONCERNING SUDDEN DEATH
It's Growing Frequency Attributed In nc
Excitement of Modern Life.

a highly advanced CIVILIZATION. Inc
feverish excitement, the incessant effort
necessary to support existence, which is
to many men a sea that has no haven, n
struggle that knows no lull, must newt
ably tell. one may reasonably suppose, on
the heart 5 action, If a man escapes the
ordinary forms Of nervous arrangement
Sudden death, whether the result Of
morbid agencies so subtle that they evade
diagnosis, or so insidious that they an
ucirate prognosis by suddenly and M
pectedly terminating life, is becoming so
common that it forms one of the distinct
i've features of modern pathology The
form in which it commonly appears low
may be said to be the result Of obscure
cardiac affections, and it was compare
lively more rare, both in ancient times
and among our forefathers, compared
with its present frequency.
During the earlier and even the me
dleval centuries of the Christian era, sud
den death was regarded with especial
horror. and in the itany of the Anglican
church is represented as heading the list
Of the most terrible calamities incident to
humanity. In pagan antiquity, on the
other hand, a sudden death was held
to be the crown Of the blessings that
heaven could bestow on man. The
Greeks represented Death as a pleasing,
gentle being, while their conceptions Of
an after life were gloomy.
Socrates regarded death as ian indifTer-
ent accident" Much depends on the
circumstances under which death presents
itself. as well as the state of mans con-
science and the condition of his worldly
affairs. AS years roll on death becomes
less and less dreaded. Aged people gen.
orally leave life without regret. Julius
Caesar Is said to have wished for sudden
death, but he said so just before he was
slain, and when the mission of his life
had been accomplished. Charles ii could
apologize to his courtiers for being such
an uncomfortable time in dying" Vol
taire. and Hume, and Rousseau weighed
pros and cons for sudden death, and
affected to sum up in its favor, but sucb
a subject is sorry matter either for cpl
gram or rhetoric.
In nine cases out of ten death Is q
great calamity. 1t finds men unprepared;
il deprives them of the ~alleviations which
rob the summons of many of its %terrors;
It often entails embarrassment and mis-
cry by cutting off all opportunity of
making testatory arrangements, thereby
%bequeathing a direful legacy of feud and
estrangement to families who might have
lived in harmony.
The moral, and a very practical one 1t
ia, Is that the increasing frequency OF
sudden deaths is to be regarded with
alarm, softened by n hope that med
zeal science may DO able to arrest its
progress, and that o proper regard for
their domestic responsibilities will induce
sensible men not to continue to defer the
proper arrangement Of their affairs which
ten seconds may make too late.
The three men whose lives, tempera-
nlents and habits were peculiarly typical
Of the times in which we live were I'M
ioubtedly Lord Macaulay, William Make
peace Thackeray and Charles Dickens.
These three men, renowned writers, and
each a master of his art, all died COM
paratively young, and all died suddenly.
and the first two of heart disease. Death
came upon them, not with slow and
measured steps, but without motto of
warning. Apparently there was a pain
less passing from time into eternity.
Look at the work these men did. Ma
caulay had already won high reputation
for prose and poetry at the age Of 80, and
the famous article on Milton, which at
once won him a reputation as a essayist,
that his subsequent performances in that
line merely confirmed, was published be-
fore he was 25 years old.
Macaulay for over thirty years had
three lives, as it were. He was a politi-
clan, he was q man Of letters, he was a
man of society; a great debater and n
good working official; n distinguished
and voluminous author; n diner out
whose company was sought for his On
versation by all who could obtain it.
Hard brain work in parliament and in a
mans library is scarcely compatible with
grand dinners and breakfasts which,
with i~elicacies of food and vino, were al
most as bad as the dinners.
Thackeray and Dickens suffered greatly
from the same cause. They were free
l~ivers; they loved society. These two
did an immense quantity of literary
work. Thackeray scarcely fell off in
point Of execution, hardly in construc-
ton, to the last. ''Denis Duval," a
story which he left incomplete, promised
to be as good as any of its predecessors
except VANITY Fair" which Is its au-
thor's best work. Dickens was far more
successful in his latter work. "Our Mu-
tual Friend" is a performance more am
bilious than able, with a heavy, involved
plot; and the half OF Edwin brood
that has been published Is not good
enough to make any reader wish for
more of it. Dickens overworked himself
until paralysis gave him warning, I'M
happily not needed, and the end came
suddenly.
A very elegant writer, in a beautifully
written essay entitled Erroneous No
tons of Death Reproved, " observes: SIN
particular it Is thought that this final
event passes with some dreadful vista
ton Of unknown agony over the depart
ing sufferer. 1t Is imagined that there is
some strange and mysterious reluctance
in the spirit to leave the body; that 1t
struggles long to retain its hold, and is at
last torn with violence from its mortal
tenement and, in fine, that this conflict
between the soul and the body greatly
adds to the pangs of the dissolution. But
II may be justly presumed from what
usually appears that there is no particu-
Tar nor acute suffering, not more than is
often experienced during life, nay, rather
that there is less, because the very powers
OF suffering are ~enfeebled, the very capa-
cities of pain are nearly exhausted.
Death is To be regarded rather as a