DOES DEATH STING.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 7, Issue 413, 28 November 1884, Page 5

DOES DEATH STING.

One is remarkably exempt from tlie crime of hasty induction if he affirms that there is no sane or healthy mortal who anticipates his extinction with any degree of pleasure. The function of dying is absolutely vegetative — we fall to pieces like a flower. This very fact, that the process is chemical, confirms us in the conclusion that the final " throe " is as painless as ths inconvenience is nothing to the foetal pilgrim when he touches on daylight. A. moment's examination of the way we are to die will show marks of good- . ness in our '* taking off." The degree of sensibility is proportioned to the integrity cf the tissues. An inflammation heightens it ; age depreciates it. Any defect in nutrition disturbs the comfort of the individual until the carbonic acid generated in the devital- j isation of the blood becomes fixed in the cells or is no longer displaced. The sensory ganglia everywhere cease to conduct currents. During the progress of this dissolution of nerve force, this creeping on ot this numbness of death, the individual is rapidly passing into a condition of repose, and instead of I torture or pangs, a degree of selfsatisfaction oft approaching to an enthusiasm is realised. The sensations peculiar to the operation of opium, haschish, ether, etc., are not improbably akin to the mental activities of tho dying. Barring the hallucinations in the stupor as ifc gains on the subject, the moribund is familiar with naught that borders on suffering. In short the notion of pain is forbidden the instant that any stimulant fails to excite a response. Fortunately, for a wholesome study of one's demise, there are assurances abundant, from vivisection, the testimony of those who have been restored to consciousness, and the affirmations of the djing, that there is no physical recoil from death. Burney tried hard to resist the efforts made to resuscitate him from drowning, so bewitched was he by his prolonged slumber. Dr Soknder, the traveller, was so delighted with the sensations of excessive cold, J that he was the first to lie down in the snow to realise the luxury of such a death. Wm. Hunter was sorry he was not able to " write how easy and delightful it is to die." Infants die as j serenely as they breathe, and not a few among the advanced in years treat death as a friend lo their infirmities. Hanging is naturally rated a most dis- > tressing procedure. But it is reported of those who have been saved from strangulation, that the agony promised to be brief, and was rapidly replaced by hallucinations of a fascinating variety. One would fain believe that the kind God who suffered us to feel no sigh in coming would take no delight in turning our farewell into writhing — nay, He does not quit us at the last. He is our greatest benefactor in allowing us to sleep out of weariness. Death is, assuredly, no tax collector ; its " jaws " are not the clutches of an assailant ; there is no " victory to the grave :" the ghost speeds away from us as it entered, with no ruffle. The sense of death, as Shakespeare has it, is most in apprehension. It is the fear of the lonely night, not the throes of nature, that makes the leaving painful.