192 DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OF DEATH. 



The circumstance which has given rise to our notions respecting the sufferings of 

 our last moments is, that in certain diseases there is a convulsive action of the muscles 

 at the time at which the sensibility is extinguished. But these are not acts of volition. 

 The laws of our nature tell us that they are not the effects of suffering; and we never 

 see in the patient any indication that he suffers. They are of the same nature with 

 the convulsive motions of the epileptic, of which he is wholly unconscious. Were they 

 indications of a struggle of feeling, necessarily connected with the last act of dying, 

 as has been supposed, they would be a constant symptom ; whereas they only 

 occur under certain circumstances of the constitution or the disease. One of the 

 least painful of violent deaths is that from loss of blood ; yet here this struggle very 

 uniformly attends the last act of dying, according to the common acceptation of the 

 term ; and it is evident that here the sensibility, in consequence of the failure of 

 circulation, is almost extinguished before this involuntary action of the muscles takes 

 place*. 



It is generally supposed that the struggle of the criminal after the drop falls is the 

 measure of his sufferings. The most vigorous necessarily suffer most, because in them 

 the sensibility is with most difficulty extinguished ; but it is not uniformly in them 

 that this struggle is greatest. We have reason to believe that it is little, if at all, con- 

 nected with the feelings of the sufferer. All such convulsive motions are of the same 

 nature with what is called suhsultus tendinum, so apt to occur in fever, even while the 

 sensibility is little, if at all, impaired, but which gives no uneasiness but what arises 

 from the motions of the limbs it occasions. 



The causes of disease under various circumstances must act more or less interrupt- 

 edly. In some cases their operation wholly ceases, and is renewed at intervals, causing 

 the disease to intermit. There is a principle in the animal body on which the cure of 

 all diseases depends, termed by writers the vis medicatrix, in consequence of which the 

 more immediate effects of the offending cause are followed by others which tend to 

 counteract them. If the surface of the bowels, for example, be irritated, a more copious 

 secretion of their fluids and an increase of the peristaltic motion are excited, by which 

 the irritation is relieved and the cause of injury expelled ; and although there are 

 few cases in which the operation of this power is so simple as in this instance, in all 

 diseases its effects may more or less be observed, and a great part of the object of 

 medical treatment, as far as the nature of the disease is understood, is to assist and 



* It may appear at first view that our condition would have been improved had we not been endowed with 

 the sensibility which often renders disease so great an evil ; but in the same proportion as our ease would have 

 thus been consulted, our danger would have been increased. It is by the quick sensibiUty of our frame that we 

 are warned of a thousand dangers, and enabled to guard against them. Such is the imperfection of our present 

 state, that we enjoy few advantages which have not occasionally their accompanying evils. But there is no in- 

 stance but that of sleep, which is rather an imperfection than a positive evil, in which the evil necessarily exists; 

 and thus we have reason to believe that the sum of enjoyment is the greatest of which that state admits. The 

 species is protected at the expense of the individual. 



