THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 307 



long ago faded away, there can be no place for fear at the 

 brink of the grave. The animal does not tremble in the 

 instant before it ceases to be. 



Unfortunately, death of this kind is very rare for hu- 

 manity. Death from old age has become an extraordinary 

 phenomenon. Most commonly we succumb to a disturb- 

 ance in the functions of our vital system, which is some- 

 times sudden, sometimes gradual. In this case, as in the 

 former one, we observe animal life disappearing first, but 

 the modes of its conclusion are infinitely varied. 1 One of 

 the most usual is death through the lungs ; as a result of 

 pneumonia and different forms of phthisis, the oxidation of 

 the blood becoming impossible on account of the disor- 

 ganization of the pulmonary globules, venous blood goes 

 back to the heart without gaining revivification. In the 

 case of serious and prolonged fevers, and of infectious 

 diseases, whether epidemic or otherwise, which are, charac- 

 teristically, blood-poisonings, death occurs through a gen- 

 eral change in nutrition. This is still more the fact as to 

 death consequent upon certain chronic disorders of the di- 

 gestive organs. When these are affected, the secretion of 

 those juices fitted to dissolve food dries up, and these fluids 

 go through the intestinal canal unemployed. In this case 

 the invalid dies of real starvation. Haemorrhage is one of 

 the commonest causes of death. Whenever a great artery 

 is opened from any cause, permitting the copious outflow 

 of blood, the skin grows pale, warmth declines, the breath- 

 ing is intermittent, vertigo and dimness of sight follow, 

 the expression of the features changes, cold and clammy 

 sweat covers part of the face and the limbs, the pulse gets 

 gradually weaker, and, at last, the heart stops. Virgil de- 

 scribes haemorrhage with striking fidelity in the story of 

 Dido's death. 



1 Mille modis' morimur tnortalea, nascimur un&. Una via est vitae, 

 moriendi mille figurae. 



