Why do we die?

by T. Bodley Scott

CHAPTER I

THE CHOICE OF WAYS

Why do we die so long before our time? And what do we die of? These are the two most crucial questions, as far as this life is concerned, that affects us all, but which most of us seem content to ignore.

Putting on one side the accidents of life—and among the accidents I include the acute diseases, such as pneumonia, rheumatic fever, and the infectious diseases, which attack from without, and the so far unexplained cancer—we must allow that our lives and our health are to a great extent in our own keeping, and of our own making. Three score years and ten was David’s estimate of the working years of a man’s life, but under modern conditions of improved sanitation the term of life should be at least four score years and ten, and this extra 20 per cent. should not be a time of pain and sorrow, but of peace and rest, with still some capacity for work.

Many of us used to be content to answer the first question, “Why do we die?” by saying our time had come. The unreflecting but so-called religious person seemed to think that God had placed a time limit against each individual when he came into the world. This is pure fatalism, and unworthy of the name of reason or of faith in the Divine justice. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die” is almost the logical position of such minds. We cannot hope to solve individually or in detail the mysteries of life and death, why one is cut off in the full tide of his energy, and another, who seems to be going out on the ebb, remaineth. But we must put these following questions honestly to ourselves—Are free will, scientific work, knowledge, self-restraint, and self-denial to be so much wasted powder? Are we to work out our destiny, the sport of chance, hopelessly, illogically, without ambition and without a healthy pride in our work? Is the man who spends his life in riotous living, in over-eating and drinking, and in committing every physiological sin that he can think of, to live as long and as healthily as the wise and sober man? Has the great Father of us all given us no motive for life, no work to do for Him or for our brothers?

Must not we, as separate sections of the Divine image and of His all-pervading spiritual force, endeavour with all our strength and knowledge to prolong the life given us to the utmost limit? Surely the fact of our life, the gift of our life, becomes a great personal responsibility, an acknowledged debt to our Maker that we can only repay by regarding it as a treasure to be daily cared for and cherished. Thus the promotion of health and the prevention of disease must manifestly be our first considerations, for without health our output of work ceases, or becomes both in quantity and character a poor thing.

The despairing cry of “Why was I born?” comes to most of us in the sorrows and tragedies of life, but it is the cry of faithlessness, of relativity, of blindness to the sure, but half-seen purposes of the Absolute God.

That which we in our presumption are pleased to call civilization, should certainly further such aims for health, but the whole story of the world, of past and gone kingdoms, and of our own times also, show that civilization works up to a point of luxury that defeats and destroys itself. Babylon, Egypt, and Rome all testify to this end. These old civilizations perished, perhaps, more from enervating luxury and dissipation than from violence; though some of them gave way through feebleness, physical and mental, to a stronger, hardier race from without. In our own times there seems to loom the same danger, but the attack comes from another side. We neither eat nor drink to such excess as our forefathers, and we are not grossly luxurious or debauched, but the strain and the competition of life, both in professions and in business, has become so intense that our nervous systems break down long before their time. This produces rather a new type of an old disease. What is this disease but arterio-sclerosis?—a word which means only thickening of the arteries, but which, after fifty, in its far-reaching results destroys life and working capacity far more than cancer or any other disease. And this disease is, in the great majority of people, the result of the almost incessant nervous strain that seldom allows our hearts and our arteries, and especially the arteries of our brains, to get their proper quota of rest.

Though the average duration of life has increased during the last fifty years, much of this is due to a lower mortality in infancy and childhood. There has been an actual increase in the mortality rate among males between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five. One-third of the total deaths in this period are due to diseases of the heart and blood vessels. In America it is stated to be 10 per cent. higher. If the causes of death in certificates were given more exactly, this proportion would be without doubt still greater. These deaths cannot be fairly brought under the heading “Old age.” This is what we die of! According to our death certificates we die of paralysis, of strokes, of Bright’s disease, of softening of the brain, of cardiac degeneration, of angina pectoris, but in nearly every case the foundation, the causa causans is arterial disease.

Sir Clifford Allbutt, in his distinctive way, says:—