San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-11-03
Che Daily Ifgbt.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1895
THE NATURE OF DEATH.
Tho Life That Endures Is Life Only in the
Abstract

from our knoWledge OF 1t IN man aud
the higher animals, and conceive it er.
roneously. For with the higher ami
mails, what we call death is a sudden
cessation of the gross functions of the
body. There is moment at which the
watchers say, This that was alive, is
now dead" Death has come by one
of the atric merits, tne three gates;
by the failure of the heart, of the
lungs, or the brain, tie mechanism has
broken down, and stops suddenly and
visibly. Even in old age, when there
has been a slow degeneration of all the
organs, the final arrest OF their func-
tons comes sharply, at particular
moment But this suddenness is no
part of the real nature of the event.
The point of time varies with the skill
of the surgeon and with the appliances
at his disposal. 1t is not until long
after the moment at which it seems to
us that the spirit has left the body that
the tissues are dead For hours after
ward the skin rems ms alive the hairs
grow, the sweat glands are in repulsive
activity, while tfe muscles respond to
electrical stimulation by nightmare
contortions. The body of man is a
highly integrated structure; each or
gan has communion so intimate with
every other that failure of any part is
reflected upon the whole, and the
breakdown of heart, or lungs, or
brain brings slow but irremediab!e dis
aster upon the whole body. In this
we have to distinguish two tnings:
What we call death-the sudden arrest
that is an accident of the complex har-
mony of the body, as when steamship
is stopped in mid-ocean by the rupture
of valve-and the actual death of the
living protoplasm of the cells and
tissues.
In the descending scale of animal
life the relations between che organs
ar.sless and less intimate, and mislead-
Ing suddenness of the arrest of their
machinery fades away, The heart of
turtle, from which the brain has
been removed, will continue to beat
for days.
A worm or a star-fish may be cut in
pieces, and each piece remains alive,
sometimes even reproducing the
whole. Who shall name the point of
death of an oyster, or of a sea-
anemone? No stoppsge of a single
organ, causes sudden death and con-
spicuo change in the whole, when
protopA smic death of part occurs,
eitb-~ the part is slorghed away and
rel .aced, or the ripp.es of destructive
change spread slowly from cell to cell,
each unaffected part remaining active
to the last. In the simplest animals of
all, organisms that consist of single
cell, death may be seen at its lowest
terms There is no composite multi
cellular body, no bodily mechanism to
break down, no possibility of the fail
,ure of one set of cells gradually creep
ing upon others. Each organism is
alive or dead as its protoplasm is alive
or dead.
Here, in their simplest forms, are
life and death; and here, asking if
death be inherent in living matter, we
find surprising ansvssva Violence of
heat and cold, mechanical forces and
the assaults of chemical affinites may
destroy these single particles of life;
but if not overthrown by rude acct
dent, and if provided with food and
drink, their potaplash lives forever.
Each particle feeds until, outgrowing
convenient size, it cleaves asunder
and the one life becomes two lives.
So far as reason and observation can
inform US, the living particles in the
ponds and seas of to-day have de-
scended In a direct continuity of liv-
ing material from the first dawn of
life. No other solution is open, save
the possibility of a spontaneous gen.
Grafton of living matter so continual
and so common that it could not have
eluded the search of science. This Is
that immortality of the protocol"
limited at by Lancaster IN England,
blazoned into fame by Weismann
Whether or not the protoplasm of the
tissues of higher organisms be poten'
TALLY immortal can be only matter
of inference. The reproductive cells,
inds ed, form living chain, binding
the animals and plants of the present
with the animals and plants of the re-
motest past This reproductive pro-
toplasm is immortal in precisely the
same sense aNthe protoplasm of single
Guild 10 anu SSChS lo
reason to believe with Weismann that
the protoplasm of the other tissues has
acquired mortality, and is os differ
emit kind. 1t dies, but only because it
is a part of complex structure.
The machinery of the body is not
regulated to last forever; on the other
hand, it is to the advantage of the race
that it should break down when repro
-duction has been accomplished, and
SITS breakdown results in the ruin of
its component parts. There is no
reason to suppose the protoplasm itself
grows old. A slip cut from tree
many centuries old may be grated on
a young tree, and so enter on new
lease of life. We're the process to be
continued, continuity of protoplas-
mic life might be maintained. So far