THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. 307 
long ago faded away, there can be no place for fear at the 
brink of the grave. The animal does not tremble in the 
instant before it ceases to be. 
Unfortunately, death of this kind is very rare for hu- 
manity. Death from old age has become an extraordinary 
phenomenon. Most commonly we succumb to a disturb- 
ance in the functions of our vital system, which is some- 
times sudden, sometimes gradual. In this case, as in the 
former one, we observe animal life disappearing first, but 
the modes of its conclusion are infinitely varied.‘ One of 
the most usual is death through the lungs; as a result of 
pneumonia and different forms of phthisis, the oxidation of 
the blood becoming impossible on account of the disor- 
ganization of the pulmonary globules, venous blood goes 
back to the heart without gaining revivification, In the 
case of serious and prolonged fevers, and of infectious 
diseases, whether epidemic or otherwise, which are, charac- 
teristically, blood-poisonings, death occurs through a gen- 
eral change in nutrition. This is still more the fact as to 
death consequent upon certain chronic disorders of the di- 
gestive organs. When these are affected, the secretion of 
those juices fitted to dissolve food dries up, and these fluids 
go through the intestinal canal unemployed. In this case 
the invalid dies of real starvation. Hemorrhage is one of 
the commonest causes of death. Whenever a great artery 
is opened from any cause, permitting the copious outflow 
of blood, the skin grows pale,.warmth declines, the breath- 
ing is intermittent, vertigo and dimness of sight follow, 
the expression of the features changes, cold and clammy 
sweat covers part of the face and the limbs, the pulse gets 
gradually weaker, and, at last, the heart stops. Virgil de- 
scribes hemorrhage with striking fidelity in the story of 
Dido’s death. 
* Mille modis morimur mortales, nascimur und. Una via est vita, 
moriendi mille figure. 
