Is Death Painless?

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 163, 15 June 1883, Page 3

Is Death Painless?

A Philadelphia phjsican has made a special study of the phenomena of death, both through his personal observations and those of others, and his conclusion is that the dissolution is painless. " I mean/ he explains, ''that it approaches unconsciously as sleep. The soul leave? the world as painlessly as it enters r Whatever be the cause of death, wheth i by lingering malady or sudden tiolence, dissolution comes either through syncope 9MBphyxia. In the lattei case, when TC&lting from disease, the struggle is long protracted, and accompanied by all the visible marks of agony which the imagination associates with the closing scenes of life. Death does .not strike all the organs of the body at the same time, and the lungs are the last to give up the performance of their functions. As death approaches, the latter gradually become more and more oppressed ; hence the rattle. Nor is the contact sufficiently perfect to change the black venous into the red arterial blood ; an unprepared fluid consequently issues from the Jungs into the I cart, and is thence transmitted to, every organ of the body. The brain receives it, and its energies appear to be lulled thereby into sleep— generally tranquil •leep — filled with dreams which- impel the dying' to murmur out the names of friends and the Occupations and recollections of past lile. "