318 PHYSIOLOGY CHAP. 



memory of past events. In the case of natural death, which 

 approaches gradually without causing unconsciousness, the dying 

 person passes his career methodically in review and can relate it 

 to those around him. When the end is sudden and accidental, 

 the past probably revives, but does so as a period which has been 

 but cursorily traversed. 



Sollier attributes the sense of euphoria common in those dying 

 from natural or morbid causes to the functional weakening of the 

 nervous system, which leads to anaesthesia and analgesia ; whilst 

 in cases of accidents the attention is turned sharply to the cause 

 which is to end in death, and the patient becomes anaesthetic and 

 analgesic from distraction. Fere on the other hand regards the 

 reawakening of the intelligence and moral tone of the dying as a 

 hyper -excitement of the nervous elements which are about to be 

 deprived of their vital properties, an excitement which may be 

 compared to the last contraction which precedes the advent of 

 rigor mortis, and is the last vital act of muscles. Both these 

 phenomena are probably due to an accumulation of toxins or 

 of the waste products of the tissues as a whole. 



Whatever may be the truth of these ingenious explanations, 

 observation of the phenomena of the last moments of life gives 

 us the right to conclude that dying is not physically painful and 

 that in the majority of cases euthanasia is a normal phenomenon. 



If we can succeed in eliminating not only physical but also 

 mental pain we shall attain the ideal, a good, gentle, calm death, 

 such as that preached by Maurice Maeterlinck. Could we learn 

 to regard death itself, freed from material horrors and imaginary 

 fears, it would seem to us calmer and more serene. " As a well- 

 spent day makes us glad to sleep, so a well -spent life brings a 

 happy death," says Leonardo da Vinci. It is not so much the 

 dissolution of the body as the extinction of personal consciousness 

 which moves and distresses men (especially men of a higher 

 order) and makes them turn pale in the presence of death. 

 Doctors advise two specific remedies philosophy and religion 

 for this fear of death which afflicts humanity, not so much in the 

 last moments when the senses are dulled and the consciousness 

 clouded, but on every grey day, at every sad domestic event 

 throughout life. 



Our illustrious Greek scholar, Comparetti, edited in 1885 a 

 noteworthy fragment of Epicurus taken from a papyrus found in 

 Herculaneum. In this fragment the Greek philosopher, summing 

 up his doctrine of happiness (eudaemonid), which he regards as 

 consisting in the untroubled serenity of the soul (ataraxia), tells 

 his pupil that he must always have with him and hold in his 

 hand what he calls the fourfold remedy (tetrapharmakori), namely: 

 God is not to be feared ; death is not to be a cause of worry ; good 

 is easy to follow; evil easy to bear. With reference to the maxim 



