The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-06-23

of care" The morning of its day is
childhood, its noon, middle life, and its
hour for sleep is when the heart stops.
The phenomenon called sleep may be
summed up in the following PROPOSE
tons:
First-Sleep is temporary death of the
functions of the sensitive system, due
to exhaustion by fatigue.
Second-This death is temporary be-
cause the vital system continues to
perform it's functions during sleep and
restores the sensitive organs to their
normal condition.
For our purpose death may be con-
sidered under the three heads: natural
death. sudden death, and death from
disease. Natural death is death from
old age, and is rarely witnessed in
modern life. Our social conditions are
so complex and unjust that special
strain or anxiety, in one form or an
other, wears out one organ, or set OF
organs, long before the others. Our
bad social and economic conditions are
no longer confined to the congested
centers. Their baleful influences are
being felt, in one form or another, by
the inhabitants of the most remote
hamlets. Hence we seldom see, as in
former times. an individual approach
the close of long life with each organ
gradually losing it's sensibility along
| with all the others, or the human
machine go to pieces all together, like
Doctor Holmes famous 'One Horse
Shay
| Natural death differs from natural
sleep only in degree. The gradual loss
of sensibility by the sensitive organs,
which precedes sleep, now takes place
| in the vital system, and all the organa
pass into permanent sleep together
There can be no pain preceding or at
the moment of such a death, any more
than there is pain preceding and at
/ the moment of passing into temporary
sleep.
| The second, in our classification, is
sudden death. This may be defined "a
death due to a sudden injury. from
without or within the body, sufficient
| to destroy, at once, all irritability OF
| both the sensitive and vital systems.
1t requires no argument to prove that
a person who is suddenly stricken dead
can suffer no pain. The element OF
time must be present in order to suffer
physical pain; and in the sudden death
of a person, the element of time IL
absent.
| We come now to consider the third
and by far the most frequent form OF
death, namely, death from disease
Thomas A. Edison tells a story of a
man who invented a wonderful liver
Itonic This tonic made his liver
SO much stronger than all his other
organs that when the man died 1t re-
fused to die with them, and had to be
killed with a club, before the funeral
could proceed. There is more to this
story than appears on the surface. oil
perhaps than Mr.. Edison suspects. Fol-
it is a fact, that when an organ be-
Il comes diseased or fails to perform Its
particular function in the community
of functions which constitute the life
of man, it causes Decentralization among
all the other organs, which are them
selves in perfect working order. Ant
. continued failure of the afflicted mem
Der to do it's work does eventually re
, duce to the dying point, or as Mr.
Edison would say, clubs the life out of
, the other stronger organs. The tim'
required to reduce the healthy organs
solution will depend on the charactei
of the disease itself and the importance
of the organ or tissue which 1t attacks
The lungs, for instance, may be TIT
seat of an inflammation so acute anC
extensive as to fill up the air-spaces
, exclude the necessary oxygen from thu
blood, and thus in few hours over
? power the other organs and cause tn
death of an individual who was pre-
viously healthy. On the other hand,
, chronic disease in an organ not 81
vitality important may require years t.
complicate and inhibit the functions o
the other organs to the point of dis
solution of the entire structure.
: AS soon as disease is established
diving begins; which is but a NOR
rapid than natural ceasing of all sensi
; bilities. accompanied with more or les
t suffering, according to the cause whici
: produces it. This dying and suffering
| lcalIed disease, must terminate either II
so-called DEATH which is insensibilit.
to it, or in recovery, which is remova
of the cause of it. But in any even
! the suffering has been endured, no mat
ter whether the final termination /
, death or recovery. No one is consciou
of, or can recall, the moment he passe
/, from waking into natural or temporar,
sleep. Nor shall we, by a "suprem
agony" or in any other way, be con
r cious of passing into permanent sleeT
Being born and dying are the two mos
, important physiological events in tn
, life-history of our bodies. And we shal
know no more about the latter even
Of tho TINA IT occurs than we did abOu
the former.