AS THE BIOLOGIST SEES IT 



asking him about species death but 

 individual death; the death of our rela 

 tives and friends, the death of my com 

 panion just as he had reached his greatest 

 usefulness for science, for humanity, his 

 greatest power for achievement and, 

 because of it, his greatest joy in living and 

 our greatest loss in his passing. What has 

 the biologist to say about this kind of 

 death? 



Truly, very little. He can explain or 

 describe death, as it affects the body, in 

 more precise terms than we commonly 

 use; he can describe the particular, 

 irreversible physical and chemical changes 

 that characterize or are physical death 

 in the exact terminology of science and 

 indicate the immediate specific causes 

 that set up these changes, but this is very 

 far from satisfying us. To explain to us 

 that the human body is a machine which 

 differs from other machines with which 

 it may be compared in that when once 

 stopped it cannot be set going again, is 

 not in the least to solve for most of us the 

 111 



