igosj TRANSPLANTATION OF VESSELS AND ORGANS. 687 



all the constituent parts of the body would continue to live. The 

 man, however, would be dead, for his personality would have dis- 

 appeared. In this case, general death can be defined as the rupture 

 of the contract of association between the tissues and organs of the 

 organism by failure of one of the partners, the heart. Therefore, 

 general death is very different from elemental death. It is merely 

 the starting point of the disintegrative phenomena which lead to 

 elemental death. 



Immediately after general death, elemental death begins. It is 

 a complex and slow process which progressively destroys the living 

 matter. We cannot know directly whether or not a tissue is living 

 and by what chemical or physical peculiarities a living being differs 

 from its corpse. There is no reagent of life. Living matter, in a 

 condition of non-manifested life, is apparently similar to non-living 

 matter. We perceive life only through its manifestations. Our 

 ignorance renders for us unmanifested life similar to death. If 

 seeds or microbes are placed in physico-chemical conditions, where 

 manifested life is impossible, living matter canot be distinguished 

 from dead matter. What is the difference between a dead seed and 

 the seed which will produce a large tree? We do not know. Be- 

 tween a vessel which will live normally after transplantation, and 

 another one which will undergo deep microscopical lesions, there is 

 no morphological difference. We know merely that, immediately 

 after general death, the tissues are still alive, because they manifest 

 life if they are given back their normal circulation. We know also 

 that some time after general death they die, because they are not 

 able to manifest life again, even when replaced in normal physio- 

 logical condition. Between the death of the organism and the ele- 

 mental death there is a period where the tissues are progressively 

 invaded by cadaveric disintegration. At the beginning, the cadaveric 

 changes are slight, and the tissues can recover if placed back into 

 normal condition. Later, irreversible changes take place and ele- 

 mental death, that is, destruction of the living matter, occurs. 



The duration of this period intermediate between death of the 

 organism and elemental death is longer or shorter, according to the 

 nature of the tissue. The cerebral substance disintegrates so quickly 

 that, after a few minutes of complete anemia, irreparable lesions 



