Year: 1876

BY the strict law of nature a man should
die as unconscious of his death as of IN
birth.


Subjected at birth to what would be, il


the afIer-conscious state, an ordeal to which


the most cruel of deaths were not possibly


more severe, he sleeps through the passion


and only upon the subsequent awakening


feels the impression. painful or pleasant, oi
| the world into which he is delivered. Ii


this instance the perfect law i. fulfilled, be


cause the carrying of it out is retained by


nature herself; human free-will and the


caprice that springs from it have no In-
! fuence.


By the haud of nature dealh were equally


painless portion. The cycle of life { ,m.
! pleted, the living being sleeps into death


when nature has her way.


This purely pain les' process, this descent


by oblvious trance into oblivion, this nat


ural physical death, is the true euthanasa


and it is the duty of those we call physI-
clans 10 secure for man such good heath as
shall bear him in activity and happiness on
ward in his course to this goal For eutha-


nasia, though it be open to every one born


of every race, is not to be bad by any save


through obedience to those laws which it is


the mission OF the physician to learn, to


teach, and to enforce.


Euthanasia is the sequel of health, the


happy death engrafted on the perfect life


When the physician has taught the world


how this benign process of nature may be
secured, and the world has accepted the les.
son, death itself will be practically banished !;
it. will be Invested equally of fear, of sor


row, of suffering. II will come as sleep


II you ask what proof there is OF the pos
sibility of such a cOnsummation, point to
our knowledge of the natural phenomena
one form of dissolution revealed to us even
now in perfect, though exceptional, illus
tration. We have all seen nature, in rare
instances, vindicating herself despite the
social opposition to her, and showing how
tenderly, how soothingly, Low like mother
with her foot on the cradle, she would, if
she were permitted, rock us all gently out
of the world bow, if the freC-will with
which she has armed US were brought into
accord with her designs, she would give us
the riches, the beauties, the wonders of the
universe for our portion so long as we could
receive and enjoy them; and at last would
gently Withdraw US from them, sense by
serse, with such interception that the pain
of the withdrawal would'b be unfelt and in
deed unknown.


Ten times in my own observation I re-
member Witnessing, with attentive mind,
these phenomena of natural euthanasia
Without pain, anger or sorrow, the intel
lectual faculties of the fated man lose their
brightness. Ambition ceases or sinks into
desire for repose. Ideas of time, of space,
of duty lingeringly pass away.


To sleep and not to dream is the pressing,
and, step by step, still pressing need; until
at length it whites away nearly all the hours.
~ l. 4. 4
less, careless, happy awakening to the hum
of busy world, to the merry sounds of
children at play, to the sounds of voices
offering aid; to the effect of talking On sim
pie topics und recalling events that dwelt
longest on the memory; and then again the
overpowering sleep. Thus on and ON, until,
az length, the intellectual nature is lost, the
instructive and merely animal functions,
now no longer required to sustain the higher
faculties, in their turn succumb and fall i'll
to the inertia.


This is death by nature, and when man
kind has learned the truth, when the time
shall cOme-as come it wIH-that ''there
shall be no more an infant of days, nor an
old man who hath not filled his days" this
act OF death, now, rule, so dreaded be-
cause so premature, shall, arriving only at
its appointed hour, suggest no terror, ibtlict
no agony. .l


The sharpness of death removed from
those who die, the poignancy of grief would
be almost equally removed from those who
survive, were natural euthaDasia the pre-
vaihng fact. Our sensibihtes are governed
by the observance of natural law and the
breach of it. 1t is only when nature is We
hemently interrupted that we either wonder
or weep. Thus the old Greeks, fathers OF
p1ITf yuh In. So
as an ofTense, and attached the word mad
ness to melancholy, even they were SO far
imbued with sorrow when the child or youth
died, that they bore the lifeless body to the
pyre in the break of the mor.iDg, lest the
sun should behold SO sad sight as the
young dead while we, who court rather
than seek To dismiss melancholy, who find
poetry and plety IN melancholic reverie, and
who indulge too often in what, after time, |
becomes the luxury of woe, experience
gradatlon OF suffering as we witness the
work of death. For the loss of the child
and the youth we mourn in the perfect puri-
ty of sorrow !; for the loss of the man in his
we feel grief mingled with selfish
regret that SO much that was useful has
ceased to De. Iu the loss of the aged, in
their days OF second childishness and mere
We sympathize for something that
has passed away, and for moment recall
events saddening to the memory but how
soon this consoling thought succeeds and
onquers-that,the race OF the life that has
gone was run, an that for its own sake the |
of its removal was most merci-
full and most Wisel


To the rule of natural death there are |
few exceptions UnswerVing in her great |
purposes fot the universal good, nature has
imposed on the world of life her storms, |
earthquakes, lightnings, and all those sub !
lime manifestations of her supreme power |
which, in the infant days of the universe. |
cowed the botdest and implanted in the hu-
man heart fears and superstitions which in |
hereditary progression have passed down
even to the present generations. Thus she |
has exposed US all to accidents Of premature
death, but, with Infinite wisdom, and as If |
to tell Us shat her design is to provide for
these inevitable caiamitIes, she has given q
of number at birth to those
Of her children who, by reasen of masculine
strength and courage, shall-have most fire.
quently to face her elements of destruction |
Further, she has provided that death by her.
by accidental collision with herself, shall,
from its very velocity, be freed Of pain
Fol- pain is u product of time. To expert
ence pain the impression producing it must
be transmitted from the injured part of the
living body to the conscious center, must /
be received at the conscious centeI, and !
must be recognized by the mind as recep-
-ion; the last act being in truth the con
'cious act. In the great majority of deaths
from natural accidents there is not sufficient
lime for the accomplishment of these pro-
gressive steps by which the consciousness
s reached. The Inconsistencies Of exist
ence is the first and last fact inflicted upon
he stricken organism the destruction is so
mighty tnat the sense of it is not revealed.


The duration OF time intended by nature
10 extend between the birth of an Individual
and his natural eutbanasia is undetermined,
except In an apProxlInatiye degree. From
the first, the steady, stealthy attraction of
the earth Is ever telling upon the living
body Some force liberated from the body
during life enables il, by self-controlIed re-