tUictly hear those about me say, he is fainting, and exert themselves tu 

 relieve me from this condition, which was not without enjoyment. 



The memory then fails. The patient who, during the early part of his 

 delirium, recognized the persons about him, no longer knows his nearest 

 and most intimate friends. 



At last, he ceases to feel, but his senses vanish in succession and in a 

 a determinate order; the taste and smell cease to give any sign of exist- 

 ence; the eyes become obscured by a dark and gloomy cloud ; the ear is 

 yet sensible to sound and noise, and no doubt it was, on this account, that 

 the ancients, to ascertain that death had really taken place, were in the 

 habit of calling loudly to the deceased. 



A dying man, though no longer capable of smelling, tasting, hearing, 

 and seeing, still retains the sense of touch : he tosses about in his bed, 

 moves his arms in various directions, and is perpetually changing his 

 posture : he performs, as was already said, motions similar to those of 

 the foetus, within the mother's womb 



CCXL. Of the fieriod of death. This period is nearly the same with 

 all men, whether they live near the poles, or under the equator, whether 

 they live exclusively on animal or vegetable substances, whether they 

 lead an active life, or consume their existence in disgraceful sloth, few 

 live beyond a hundred years. There are, however, cases of men who 

 have lived far beyond that period, as, for example, those mentioned in 

 the Philosophical Transactions, one of whom lived to a hundred and 

 sixty-five. 



Few men, however, attain a hundred years, and death even when na- 

 tural, overtakes us from the age of seventy-five to a hundred. 



Difference of climate, though producing no difference in the duration 

 of life, has, however, a remarkable influence on rapidity of growth. Pu- 

 berty, manhood, and old age, come on much sooner in warm climates 

 than in northern countries, but this premature developement, which 

 shortens the duration of the periods of life, augments, in the same pro- 

 portion, that of old age. 



It is, however, difficult to say, at what precise period old age begins. 

 Is it towards the fortieth year, when the body begins to decrease and to 

 decay ? Can the change of the colour of the hair be considered as the 

 certain sign of old age ? We daily see young men with grey hair. May 

 we determine its accession by the cessation of the functions of generation 

 and the incapacity of reproduction ? Fecundity, whose term is so easily 

 determined in women, by the cessation of the menses, is in man very 

 equivocal; the emission of the seminal fluid is an uncertain sign, from 

 the difficulty of distinguishing the mucus of the vesiculx seminales and 

 of the prostate, from the truly prolific semen. Erection is likewise a 

 sign not to be relied upon: this state may be occasioned by sympathetic 

 irritation, by the compression of the bladder, distended with urine, on 

 the vcsiculae seminales. It is more difficult than is imagined, to deter- 

 mine, from observation, the period at which, in the human species, the 

 male is entirely deprived of the power of generation ; and it may be said 

 that, in establishing the period of from forty-five to fifty-five, as the be- 

 ginning of old age in our climate, there will be found men arrived at that 

 state before having reached that age; as, on the other hand, others will 

 be found after the age of fifty-five with all the characters of manhood. 

 The climaterical period of sixty-three is the decided and confirmed pe- 



