DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OF DEATH. 179 



that has hitherto interested and been grateful to us. Even here, however, for the most 

 part, the laws of our nature are merciful. Most diseases of continuance, (for we shall 

 find there are some exceptions,) not only gradually impair our sensibility, but alter our 

 tastes. They not only render us less sensible to all impressions, but less capable of 

 enjoying as far as we are still sensible to them. The sight of a feast to a man who 

 has lost his appetite is disgustful, and a similar change takes place in a greater or less 

 degree with respect to all other means of enjoyment. 



These circumstances constitute a great part of the difference of our feelings with 

 respect to what, in common language, is called a violent and a natural death. In the 

 latter, as far as the sensibility is impaired, we are more or less in the state of old age, 

 and, in addition to this change, our tastes are perverted. By these means the relish 

 for life is in a great degree destroyed before we lose it. Thus in disease, the most 

 timid often meet death with composure, and sometimes, as I have repeatedly wit- 

 nessed, with pleasure. I have even known the information that the danger was 

 passed, received only with expressions of regret. 



To the form of death I am considering, belong a large proportion of the diseases of 

 long standing, and whatever else tends gradually to exhaust the powers of the sensitive 

 system, great mental excitement, too laborious a life, &c. The diseased state of the 

 sensitive parts of the brain and spinal marrow, thus induced, spreading to the vital 

 parts of those organs, terminates in a state of nervous apoplexy, the nature of which I 

 had occasion to explain in the paper on Sleep above referred to, and to contrast with that 

 of apoplexy from compression, in the most unmixed cases of which, the offending cause 



the pressure of the injected air, whereas in natural breathing the air enters in consequence of its expansion. 

 But the most essential difference between natural and artificial breathing in such circumstances is, that there 

 cannot, till recovery is far advanced, be the proper supply of nervous influence, the due action of the vital parts 

 of the brain and spinal marrow only being restored in proportion as the due force of circulation returns. Now 

 it appears from what is said in the Philosophical Transactions for 1822 and 1827*, and more fully in my Inquiry 

 into the Laws of the Vital Functions, that voltaic electricity sent through the lungs in the direction of their 

 nerves, is capable of performing as perfectly as that influence itself, the part which belongs to it in respiration, 

 which is so essential, that the more perfect animal always dies from impeded respiration if the nervous influence 

 be withdrawn from the lungs, unless voltaic electricity be supplied, which enables it to breathe as well as when 

 the nervous influence is entire. 



A proper apparatus, therefore, for sending voltaic electricity through the lungs in the direction of their nerves 

 and in due power, should be added to the other means of resuscitation, which would render them, and probably 

 to a great degree, more successful. The force of this observation will be perceived when it is considered that 

 it is at the time of the first application of the remedies that the chance of recovery is greatest, and consequently 

 that the immediate application of the whole means of healthy respiration, as far as we possess them, is of most 

 consequence. It appears from what has been said, that the due functions of respiration cannot be restored 

 till the due degree of nervous influence is supplied, and this cannot happen from inflation of the lungs till the 

 due force of circulation returns. Now the fact, explain it as we may, is, that voltaic electricity so perfectly 

 supplies the place of the nervous influence in the lungs, that their functions are equally perfect under the influ- 

 ence of either. The one can only be supplied at an advfinced period of recovery, that is, in fact, only in those 

 cases where the success of our endeavours can be secured by other m^ans ; the other is, in all cases, within our 

 reach on the instant. 



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