DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OF DEATH. 183 



functions ; and this debility, in consequence of the sympathy which exists between 

 the sensitive and vital parts of the brain and spinal marrow, spreads to the latter, and 

 thus the vital functions are, more or less quickly, so impaired that they can no longer 

 maintain those of the sensitive system. 



The nature of this death is well illustrated by the effects of severe accidents, many 

 of which operate on the same principle as the scald. The effects of severe blows on 

 the head and spine are very complicated. They at once impress equally the sensitive 

 and vital systems ; but when the cause of injury is confined to less vital parts, as in 

 the case of the scald, its first impression is on the sensitive system alone, or so 

 nearly so, that the difference may be overlooked. Such was the cause of death in the 

 case of the late Mr. Huskisson, with the circumstances of which the members of the 

 Society are well acquainted ; and hence it is that life is often saved by amputating a 

 limb in which a cause of extreme irritation exists, that caused by the operation being 

 more easily borne than the protracted irritation of a shattered limb, if the accident 

 has not so subdued the strength that the additional irritation of the operation would 

 prove immediately fatal. 



To the same head belongs the death from the bite of rabid animals. The hydro- 

 phobia is a disease of the sensitive, spreading to the vital, parts of the brain and spinal 

 marrow ; and such is the effect of many other poisons. 



It is evident that the form of death I am now considering is of the same nature as 

 the preceding, with the exception of the early stage of the latter. The sedative state 

 produced in the sensitive organs is of the same nature, whether it has arisen from the 

 excess of the stimulant operation, or from the more direct effect of the agent, when 

 applied in such extent as at once to produce this state. The symptoms produced in 

 the sensitive, and the manner in which they influence the vital, system are the same in 

 both. The same observations, therefore, which apply to the latter stage of the first 

 of these forms, apply, more or less, to the whole progress of that we are considering. 

 In both, what is called death is the final extinction of the sensibility ; the termination, 

 as far as relates to our consciousness, of the process which has been going on from 

 the first establishment of the disease. As sleep is the completion of the temporary 

 and limited exhaustion of the excitability which has been going on during the day, 

 death is here the completion of its absolute and final exhaustion, which has been going 

 on during the disease ; and it is evident, that as the sensibility decreases, the suffer- 

 ing must become less, and consequently that it is least of all at the moment of what 

 is called death. These observations, however, we shall find do not apply, in the same 

 extent, to the forms of death which still remain to be considered. 



THE three forms of death to which the attention has been directed in the preceding 

 part of this paper, namely, that from old age, that from excessive stimulants acting 

 on the sensitive parts of the brain and spinal marrow, and that from agents applied 

 to such extent as to act as sedatives on those parts, agree in an essential respect. 



