vii THE STAGES OF LIFE AND DEATH 313 



Francis Bacon (1623) was one of the first to treat scientifically 

 the problem of natural death, that " quae fit per resolutionem ac 

 atrophiam senilem." After dwelling upon the conditions essential 

 to life according to the knowledge of his day, which had not 

 advanced much since the time of Galen, he examines the atriola 

 mortis or "portals of death," and describes the phenomena pre- 

 ceding, accompanying, and following the death of man. "Duo 

 sunt rnagni praecursores mortis/' he writes ; " alter a capite, alter a 

 corde missus." 



Bliihdorn (1715), speaking of the origin of death ex aetatis 

 vitiis, attributes it to the circulation : " Hanc itaque in plenaria 

 cordis motus et sanguinis circuli destructione, optima ratione, 

 ponendam esse censendum est." 



Others who have contributed to give us more exact know- 

 ledge of the atriola mortis are Harvey (1668), Littre (1706), 

 Scheuckzer (1723), and Morgagni (1761), whose anatomical 

 records of long-lived individuals undoubtedly opened the way to 

 Bichat's Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort, with its 

 clear setting forth of the brilliant hypothesis of the tripod of life, 

 represented by the brain, the heart, and the lungs. " L'action de 

 1'un de ces trois organes est essentialement necessaire a celle des 

 deux autres. . . . Les physiologistes ont connu de tout temps 

 Fimportance de ce triple foyer . . . tout espece de mort commence 

 par 1'interruption de la circulation, de la respiration ou de 1'action 

 du cerveau. L'une de ces trois fonctions cesse d'abord, toutes les 

 autres finissent ensuite successivement ; en sort que pour exposer 

 avec precision les phe'nomenes de ces genres de morts, il faut les 

 considerer sous ces trois rapports essentiels." 



Bichat admits that natural death is rare, and that with 

 functional senile decay " termine presque entierement la vie 

 animate, longtemps avant que Vorganique ne finisse." 



Bichat's brilliant theories have been left almost unassailed by 

 the great strides made by physiology and pathology; but his 

 estimate of the importance of the three main centres of life and 

 their order of precedence in the end of bodily life has been revised. 



Nothnagel states that in the majority of cases of chronic or 

 acute disease death is due to the heart. In a treatise on the signs 

 of death Bouchut (1849) had already adduced as proof positive of 

 definite death the cessation of the cardiac sounds as verified by 

 means of auscultation all over the region of the heart. We know, 

 moreover, that even cases of serious injury to the brain or lungs 

 do not end fatally unless the heart gives out : the ultimum moriens, 

 the true atrium mortis, is thus always the heart. 



We must, however, have a clear understanding of the meaning 

 of this expression, which only indicates the undeniable fact that 

 of the three main centres of life the heart has the greatest power of 

 resistance and therefore ceases to act last. When we endeavour 



