Death 

 Decay 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



150 



viously gave rise to the phenomena of life 

 forever ceases to originate such phenomena. 

 This, and this alone, is what mankind has 

 hitherto understood by death. WEISMANN 

 Heredity, vol. i, p. 114. (Cl. P., 1891.) 



735. DEATH, SUDDEN, STRANGE 

 FORMS OF Persons Engulfed in Earthquake 

 Fissures. During the convulsions of- 1692 

 which destroyed Port Royal, it is said that 

 many of the fissures which were formed 

 opened and shut. In some of these, people 

 were entirely swallowed up and buried. In 

 others they were trapped by the middle, and 

 even by the neck, where if not killed instan- 

 taneously they perished slowly. Subsequently 

 their projecting parts formed food for dogs. 

 The earthquake which, July 18, 1880, shook 

 the Philippines caused many fissures to be 

 found, which in some places were so numer- 

 ous that the ground was broken up into 

 steps. Near to the village of San Antonio 

 the soil was so disturbed that the surface of 

 a field of sugar-canes was so altered that in 

 some cases the top of one row of full-grow r n 

 plants was on a level with the roots of the 

 next. Into one such fissure a boat disap- 

 peared, and into another a child. Subse- 

 quently the child was excavated, and its 

 body, which was found a short distance be- 

 low the surface, was completely crushed. 

 MILNE Earthquakes, ch. 8, p. 147. (A., 

 1899.) 



736. DEATH, THE FEIGNING OF, BY 



ANIMALS The Protective Instinct of Immo- 

 bility. In ordinary fear, one may either 

 run or remain semi-paralyzed. The latter 

 condition reminds us of the so-called death- 

 shamming instinct shown by many animals. 

 Dr. Lindsay, in his work "Mind in Ani- 

 mals," says this must require great self- 

 command in those that practise it. But it 

 is really no feigning of death at all, and re- 

 quires no self-command. It is simply a ter- 

 ror-paralysis which has been so useful as to 

 become hereditary. The beast of prey does 

 not think the motionless bird, insect, or 

 crustacean dead. He simply fails to notice 

 them at all; because his senses, like ours, 

 are much more strongly excited by a moving 

 object than by a still one. It is the same 

 instinct which leads a boy playing " I spy " 

 to hold his very breath when the seeker is 

 near, and which makes the beast of prey 

 himself in many cases motionlessly lie in 

 wait for his victim or silently "stalk" it, 

 by rapid approaches alternated with periods 

 of immobility. JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, 

 ch. 24, p. 420. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



737. DEATH UNWARNED Brain De- 

 stroyed before Sensation Can Reach It. 

 Now, it is quite conceivable that an injury 

 might be inflicted so rapidly that within 

 the time required by the brain to complete 

 the arrangements necessary to consciousness 

 its power of arrangement might be de- 

 stroyed. In such a case, tho the injury 



might be of a nature to cause death, this 

 would occur without pain. Death in this 

 case would be simply the sudden negation 

 of life, without any intervention of con- 

 sciousness whatever. The time required for 

 a rifle-bullet to pass clean through a man's 

 head may be roughly estimated at a thou- 

 sandth of a second. Here, therefore, we 

 should have no room for sensation [see SEN- 

 SATION], and death would be painless. 

 TYNDALL Fragments of Science, vol. i, ch. 

 21, p. 440. (A., 1900.) 



738. DEBT OF CHRISTIAN CIVILI- 

 ZATION TO MOSLEMS Algebra Developed 

 by Arabs Legacy of Orient to Occident. 

 Besides making laudatory mention of that 

 which we owe to the natural science of the 

 Arabs in both the terrestrial and celestial 

 spheres, we must likewise allude to their 

 contributions in separate paths of intellec- 

 tual development to the general mass of 

 mathematical science. According to recent 

 works ... on the history of mathe- 

 matics, we learn that "the algebra of the 

 Arabs originated from an Indian and a 

 Greek source, which long flowed independ- 

 ently of one another." . . . The process 

 of establishing a conclusion by a progress- 

 ive advance from one proposition to an- 

 other, which seems to have been unknown to 

 the ancient Indian algebraists, was acquired 

 by the Arabs from the Alexandrian school. 

 This noble inheritance, enriched by their ad- 

 ditions, passed in the twelfth century into 

 the European literature of the Middle Ages. 

 " In the algebraic works of the Indians, we 

 find the general solution of indeterminate 

 equations of the first degree, and a far more 

 elaborate mode of treating those of the sec- 

 ond, than has been transmitted to us in the 

 writings of the Alexandrian philosophers ; 

 there is, therefore, no doubt that if the 

 works of the Indians had reached us two 

 hundred years earlier, and were not now 

 first made known to Europeans, they might 

 have acted very beneficially in favoring the 

 development of modern analysis" [Chasles]. 

 HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. ii, pt. ii, p. 223. 

 (H., 1897.) 



739. DEBT OF EUROPE TO THE 

 EAST IN EARLY DAYS The Use of Bronze. 

 Another circumstance which strongly mili- 

 tates against the theory of a gradual and 

 independent development of metallurgical 

 knowledge in different countries is the fact 

 that whenever we find the bronze swords or 

 celts, " whether in Ireland, in the far West, 

 in Scotland, in distant Scandinavia, in Ger- 

 many, or still further east in the Slavonic 

 countries, they are the same, not similar 

 in character, but identical." . . . Tho 

 there are certain differences, yet several va- 

 rieties of celts found throughout Europe, as 

 well as some of the swords, knives, daggers, 

 etc., are so similar that they seem as if they 

 must have been cast by the same maker. 

 . . . Under these circumstances, it ap- 

 pears most probable that the knowledge of 



