168 DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OF DEATH. 



to ascertain what functions remain after the sensorial power is withdrawn, and of the 

 other, what functions fail on withdrawing the nervous power ; and in prosecuting 

 this subject, I found it requisite to study the process of dying, to determine the steps 

 by which the body of the more perfect animal becomes subject to the laws of inani- 

 mate matter. 



The experiments by which this was more immediately attempted were not laid be- 

 fore the Society as were the other parts of the investigation. They are detailed at 

 length in the second part of my Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions. I have 

 there, however, entered no further into the nature of death than was necessary for the 

 purpose I then had in view. I am now about to compare the results of these experi- 

 ments with those of others, made since the publication of that treatise, with a view, 

 as far as experiment can apply to it, of explaining the nature of death. 



It appears to me that the various facts ascertained in the course of the inquiries in 

 which I have been so long engaged, throw light on this subject. I shall, as I proceed, 

 refer to the passages, either in my papers in the Philosophical Transactions or my 

 Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions, where the proofs of the different posi- 

 tions I shall have occasion to state, will be found. 



In the last of the papers above referred to, I had occasion to observe, that there is 

 no question relating to the animal economy which involves a more general view of its 

 phenomena than the nature of sleep. The nature of death also includes a general 

 view of the functions of health, for such we shall find are the laws of our frame, that 

 these functions alone necessarily lead to death ; but the nature of death is a more 

 complicated question. It includes the various ways in which the functions are influ- 

 enced by disease, the effects of which are so numerous that they seem at first view a 

 train of countless phenomena which defy all attempts to refer them to general prin- 

 ciples. 



I need not say that many advantages would arise from a correct knowledge of the 

 immediate cause of death, and of the different sources from which the state that con- 

 stitutes that cause arises. The most important would be, that it would give to the 

 physician a clearer view of the tendencies of disease, and consequently of the indi- 

 cations of cure ; but it would not be the least of its advantages, that it would tend to 

 strip a change which all must undergo of the groundless terrors with which, we have 

 reason to believe, the timid and fanciful have clothed it. 



IT appears from the experiments in question, that in the more perfect animals there 

 are three distinct classes of functions, the sensorial, the nervous, and the muscular, 

 which, having no direct dependence, are yet, through their organs, dependent on each 

 other ; for the destruction of any one of these classes of functions more or less imme- 

 diately destroys the organs of all. 



We know that the immediate organs of the nervous and sensorial functions, although 

 both residing in the brain and spinal marrow, are distinct sets of organs, because they 



