IS VIOLENT DEATH PAINFUL

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 165, 14 April 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

IS VIOLENT DEATH PAINFUL

IT'S QUITE A COMFORTABLE SEN S ATI ON TO BE DROWNED!

It is at least some consolation to a man that if he is to die a violent death, lie will either feel nothing, or his sensations will be not only free from pain, but probably pleasant. The soldier who is instantaneously killed by a bullet fools nothing he does not even hoar the report of the rifle that kills him. All he knows, if lie knows anything at all, is that he's 110 longer among the living. Men who have struggled l back to life after a hairbreadth escape from drowning, declare that, after the first few moments, their sensations were pleasant —a painless, happy floating through sweet sounds and beautiful visions.

And death comes in no less pleasant guise to the man who falls from ,1 great height. When Professor Heim, u mountaineer, fell down a precipice in tin- Alps, he described his reelings thus:

"At first I seemed to bo flying through the air. At intervals 1 heard, but cid not feel, the impact of hca.cl and body against rocky prominences. "But through my long, swift descent to what seemed certain death, I felt no pain or terror. I was floating 111 a heaven of glorious blue, flecked with clouds of crimson. I was wafted to and fro, borne up painlessly and pleasantly, while a vast and moving snowfield seemed to accompany me. Then came a dull thud, which I heard, but did not feel, and my fall was ended 1 . At that instant a dark veil passed before me, and as far as all sensation went life wai over." It was when he recovered consciousness that he felt pain.