IS DEATH PAINFUL?

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2489, 16 June 1915, Page 5

IS DEATH PAINFUL?

Professor Rothnagel, ail eminent Austrian surgeon, has been lecturing in Vienna on the war aspect of the question, Ib deatb painful? The conclusion he comes to is that death in the forms in which most soldiers and sailors encounter it is painless. He states that in the wild heat of actual "battle, a leader cheering on his men to the charge, with all his energies and will focussed and concentrated on his work, does not feel any pain when a bullet pierces his head and he falls dead on the field. In this particular case the professor docs not think there is any physical pain, not even at the moment when the bullet comes in contact with the skull. He questions very much whether pain is even felt by the soldiers who meet death in this way, even though their mental faculties uiay be less concentrated.

With regard to drowning in sea battles, Rothnagel is also of opinion that death is painless, and he sees absolutely no reason to support the popular belief that a drowning man in the brief act of dying has his past life produced before his eyes. Science, as far as it is known to 'the professor, utterly opposes this theory.