DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OF DEATH. 187 



the agent which operates in the formation of the secreted fluids from the blood and the 

 other assimilating processes, is of a nature essentially different from that which effects 

 similar changes in the laboratory of the chemist, even if the facts to which I have 

 had occasion to refer had not been experimentally ascertained ; but these facts, bear- 

 ing more directly on the question, necessarily make a stronger impression. 



Let us for a moment glance at those phenomena in which we are assured that no 

 inanimate agent interferes. It is evident that the organs to which impressions made 

 on the nerves are conveyed, must be those organs from which the nerves in question 

 originate and derive their power. The sensitive nerves must communicate the im- 

 pressions made on them to the sensitive parts of the brain and spinal marrow. It 

 therefore follows that the sensorial functions, consequent on impression made on the 

 nerves of the sensitive system, are the effects of the influence of the nerves on those 

 parts of these organs. What are the results of this action of one vital part on an- 

 other ? Can we see any analogy between the phenomena of inanimate nature and 

 pleasure or pain, the excitement of the feelings, or of the powers of reflection ? 



We thus readily perceive why the sensorial functions are the first which cease in 

 dying. The stimulating parts of the blood are still present to excite the vessels, and 

 the nervous influence, as appears from direct experiments above referred to, is still 

 present to support the functions of the assimilating organs; but the sensorial functions 

 being the results of vital parts acting on each other, as the vital powers fail, the powers 

 of the parts acted on, and those which act upon them failing together, these functions 

 necessarily cease. Here there is no inanimate agent present, as in the case of the 

 nervous and muscular functions, to excite the languid powers of life*. 



It is evident that in such a system as that I have been describing, there are two 

 principles, either of which may determine the decay of all the sensitive functions. 

 These, the functions by which the intercourse with the external world is maintained, 

 may become incapable of their work, or those functions which maintain them, of their 

 office. In the only natural death, that of old age, we have seen both these principles 

 of decay in operation. The sensitive functions are gradually dimmed, and the vital 

 functions gradually become less active. 



Life, without much violence done to language, has been called a forced state. It 

 consists of excitable parts called into action by suitable stimulants. These stimulants, 

 it appears from what has been said, are all of an inanimate nature, for although the 

 sensorial can only be excited through the nervous system, the action of the former, it 



* It is observed in my Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions, that in the most sudden death arising from 

 causes which instantly destroy the powers of the nervous system, all the vital powers are at once destroyed ; 

 but this is only to be understood comparatively. The time in such cases required for their destruction is short ; 

 but in all the instances I have witnessed, the same succession, however rapid, could be observed. It was still 

 evident that the muscular and nervous survived the sensorial functions. After the sensorial functions had 

 ceased, slight flutterings of the heart and fleeting contractions of the muscles of voluntary motion could still 

 be observed. 



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