XXIX.

Immediate Cause of Death.

"Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,

Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
Being all descended to the labouring heart;
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;

Which, with the heart, there cools and ne'er returneth

To blush, and beautify the cheek again.

But see, his face is black and full of blood;

His eyeballs further out than when he lived;

His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling ;
His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
And tugged for life, and was by strength subdued."

SHAKSPEARE.

THE life of the body may be destroyed by a shock which in an instant destroys the materials of the body itself. An explosion might tear limb from limb, and leave nowhere a sufficient portion of the frame to be recognised as human. However uncommon it be, such an instantaneous disruption of all which makes up the corporeal man is conceivable and possible.

In several kinds of violent death, the vital organs are directly rent asunder, or swept away. A cannonball may remove the head, the heart, or the bowels. The wheels of a railroad car may leave only a shapeless mass behind. When the axe falls, the twin seats of life are as utterly severed as if the whole world lay between them. These are forms of death which require no explanation; the machinery of life exists no

more.

A violent shock from within may in a similar manner break some vital cord, and disconnect parts that are essential to the very existence of the system. Such is the death caused by the rupture of an aneurism, or of some important blood-vessel. More often, a portion of the frame may be so oppressed that the vital action must cease; as in effusions on the brain.

Decay of some of the organs, as of the lungs, may permit them to act till the instrument itself, more and more imperfect, becomes at last absolutely incapable of its office; and then obstructions intervene, and all is stopped. Through the inability of the lungs, an accumulation often takes place in the throat and upon the organs of respiration themselves, sufficient to suppress their already hesitating action.

The direct abstraction of large quantities of blood, from outward wounds or inward hæmorrhage, may produce such extreme weakness, and so deprive the body ́of its nutriment, that life shall be relinquished, as if for lack of fuel. Or, the substance of the frame, or of some of its parts, may become so changed and corrupted, as by gangrene, that the processes of circulation are checked, and the vital organs fail.

These are some of the immediate causes of dissolution. But often, the violence of an inflammatory attack seems so much to hurry the organic motions in one part, or to impede them in others, that the system becomes deranged and exhausted. Death may begin at the head, the heart, or the lungs; but, whatever be the process, the result, if all the organs remain, is, that the lungs pause in their play, the heart ceases to beat, the head is senseless, and every movement in every part is at an end for ever. Bacon still makes the distinction of supposing that the immediate cause of death is the reso

lution or extinguishment of the spirits; and that the destruction or corruption of the organs is but the mediate cause;" a distinction founded perhaps on the nature of animal life, but which only pushes back the operating power into a more mysterious region.

XXX.

Phenomena of Death.

"At length, no more his deafened ear

The minstrel melody can hear;

His face grows sharp, his hands are clenched,
As if some pang his heartstrings wrenched;
Set are his teeth, his fading eye

Is sternly fixed on vacancy.”

SCOTT.

WHEN death is instantaneous, all the accompanying phenomena are, of course, unobservable. Either they do not occur, or they are crowded into a moment, and cannot fix a separate notice.

When the disease has oppressed and stupefied the brain, all those phenomena are wanting, which indicate the gradual decay of sensation. Then the breath becomes troubled and irregular, more painful, feebler, shorter. The pulse is trembling, and at length almost imperceptible. First the left ventricle, then the right, loses its motion. The hands and feet grow chilled. There is sometimes a labouring, groaning struggle, as if in a dream, while all is fainter and fainter at every successive moment. Perhaps a convulsive stretch precedes the instant in which, after successive ebbs, the breath expires.

But the phenomena of death, even such as are purely physical, are best seen where consciousness is still left, where the mind still acts on the body, as well as the body on the mind, and where every step is so slow that it may be measured by the observer. The first signs

are like those of approaching sleep after deep weariness, but far stronger. At the same time, a cold sweat is often perceptible on the face and limbs; and the substance of the flesh is sunken and bloodless. There is, perhaps, an uneasy motion; the hands seem striving to pick small objects; the grasp is firm; the teeth fixed; the lower lip trembles; the body is stretched out; the extremities are cold. The senses, one by one, are enfeebled, perhaps extinguished. First, the sight fails: spots and flakes appear before the eye, and the finger strives sometimes to remove these from the covering of the bed; the countenances of friends are but imperfectly distinguished; the candle, held closely, shines as if through a thick mist; darkness comes on. Hearing endures longest; and often the voice of affection and the melody of a hymn are sweet to the last. Sometimes the ear fails not till long after the power of utterance has ceased; so that a pressure of the hand answers the affectionate question to which the tongue strives in vain to reply.

It is said, that the hair has suddenly become gray in the last struggle. This struggle, however, is generally past before the actual arrival of death. Very often there is no such struggle; but life, lingering faintly at its citadel, wanes till it imperceptibly goes out. At other times, the very departure of the spirit is in the midst of extreme agony. But, perhaps, more commonly, a season of considerable suffering attends the gradual disruption of the ties between the body and the spirit, but closes when the issue is decided, and leaves an interval of comparative rest for a few moments before the end. It is while the vital system still resists, that suffering is prolonged. When all has yielded, there is comparatively little appearance of deep distress;