Gray hairs die piecemeal.”
Sacred history informs us that, in the infancy of the world, the physiological tendency to death was far less urgently and early developed than it is now. When the change took place is not stated; if it occurred gradually, the downward progress has been long since arrested. All records make the journey of life from the time of Job and the early patriarchs, much the same as the pilgrim of to-day is destined to travel. Threescore and ten was, when Cheops built his pyramid, as it is now, a long life. Legends, antique and modern, do indeed tell us of tribes that, like Riley’s Arabs and the serfs of Middle Russia, and the Ashantees and other Africans, live two or three centuries, but these are travelers’ stories, unconfirmed. The various statistical tables that have been in modern times made up from materials more or less authentic, and the several inquiries into the general subject of longevity, seem to lead to the gratifying conclusion that there is rather an increase of the average or mean duration of civilized life. In 1806, Duvillard fixed the average duration of life in France at twenty-eight years; in 1846, Bousquet estimates it at thirty-three. Mallet calculated that the average life of the Genevese had extended ten years in three generations. In Farr’s fifth report (for 1844), the “probable duration,” the “expectation of life” in England, is placed above forty; a great improvement within half a century. It is curious, if it be true, that the extreme term seems to lessen as the average thus increases. Mallet is led to this opinion from the fact, among others, that in Geneva, coincident with the generally favorable change above mentioned, there has not been a single centenarian within twenty-seven years; such instances of longevity having been formerly no rarer there than elsewhere.
Birds and fishes are said to be the longest lived of animals. For the longevity of the latter, ascertained in fish-ponds, Bacon gives the whimsical reason that, in the moist element which surrounds them, they are protected from exsiccation of the vital juices, and thus preserved. This idea corresponds very well with the stories told of the uncalculated ages of some of the inhabitants of the bayous of Louisiana, and of the happy ignorance of that region, where a traveler once found a withered and antique corpse—so goes the tale—sitting propped in an arm-chair among his posterity, who could not comprehend why he slept so long and so soundly.
But the Hollanders and Burmese do not live especially long; and the Arab, always lean and wiry, leads a protracted life amidst his arid sands. Nor can we thus account for the lengthened age of the crow, the raven, and the eagle, which are affirmed to hold out for two or three centuries.
There is the same difference among shrubs and trees, of which some are annual, some of still more brief existence, and some almost eternal. The venerable oak bids defiance to the storms of a thousand winters; and the Indian baobab is set down as a contemporary at least of the Tower of Babel, having probably braved, like the more transient, though long-enduring olive, the very waters of the great deluge.
It will be delightful to know—will Science ever discover for us?—what constitutes the difference thus impressed upon the long and short-lived races of the organized creation. Why must the fragrant shrub or gorgeous flower-plant die immediately after performing its function of continuing the species, and the pretty ephemeron languish into non-existence just as it flutters through its genial hour of love, and grace, and enjoyment; while the banyan, and the chestnut, the tortoise, the vulture, and the carp, formed of the same primary material elements, and subsisting upon the very same resources of nutrition and supply, outlast them so indefinitely?
Death from old age, from natural decay—usually spoken of as death without disease—is most improperly termed by writers an euthanasia. Alas! how far otherwise is the truth! Old age itself is, with the rarest exceptions, exceptions which I have never had the good fortune to meet with anywhere—old age itself is a protracted and terrible disease.
During its whole progress, Death is making gradual encroachments upon the domain of life. Function after function undergoes impairment, and is less and less perfectly carried on, while organ after organ suffers atrophy and other changes, unfitting it for the performance of offices to which it was originally designed. I will not go over the gloomy detail of the observed modifications occurring in every part of the frame, now a noble ruin, majestic even in decay. The lungs admit and vivify less blood; the heart often diminishes in size and always acts more slowly, and the arteries frequently ossify; nutrition is impeded and assimilation deteriorated; senile marasmus follows, “and the seventh age falls into the lean and slippered pantaloon;” and, last and worst of all, the brain and indeed the whole nervous tissue shrink in size and weight, undergoing at the same time more or less change of structure and composition. As the skull cannot contract on its contents, the shrinking of the brain occasions a great increase of the fluid within the subarachnoid space. Communication with the outer world, now about to be cut off entirely, becomes limited and less intimate. The eyes grow dim; the ear loses its aptitude for harmony, and soon ceases to appreciate sound; odors yield no fragrance; flavors affect not the indifferent palate; and even the touch appreciates only harsh and coarse impressions. The locomotive power is lost; the capillaries refuse to circulate the dark, thick blood; the extremities retain no longer their vital warmth; the breathing slow and oppressed, more and more difficult, at last terminates forever with a deep expiration. This tedious process is rarely accomplished in the manner indicated without interruption; it is usually, nay, as far as my experience has gone, always brought to an abrupt close by the supervention of some positive malady. In our climate, this is, in the larger proportion, an affection of the respiratory apparatus, bronchitis, or pulmonitis. It will, of course, vary with the original or constitutional predisposition of the individual, and somewhat in relation to locality and season. Many aged persons die of apoplexy and its kindred cerebral maladies, not a few of diarrhœa; a winter epidemic of influenza is apt to be fatal to them in large numbers everywhere.
When we regard death pathologically, that is, as the result of violence and destructive disease, it is evident that the phenomena presented will vary relatively to the contingencies effective in producing it. It is obviously out of place here to recount them, forming as they do a vast collection of instructive facts, the basis indeed of an almost separate science, Morbid Anatomy.
There are many of the phenomena of death, however, that are common to all forms and modes of death, or are rarely wanting; these are highly interesting objects of study in themselves, and assume a still greater importance when we consider them in the light of signs or tokens of the extinction of life. It seems strange that it has been found difficult to agree upon any such signs short of molecular change or putrefactive decomposition, that shall be pronounced absolutely certain, and calculated entirely to relieve us from the horrible chance of premature interment of a body yet living. The flaccidity of the cornea is dwelt on by some; others trust rather to the rigor mortis, the rigid stiffness of the limbs and trunk supervening upon the cold relaxation which attends generally the last moments. This rigidity is not understood or explained satisfactorily. It is possible that, as Matteucci has proved, the changes in all the tissues, chiefly chemical or chemico-vital, are the source from whence is generated the “nervous force” during life; so, after death, the similar changes, now purely chemical, may, for a brief period, continue to generate the same or a similar force, which is destined to expend itself simply upon the muscular fibres in disposing them to contract. There is a vague analogy here with the effect of galvanism upon bodies recently dead, which derives some little force from the fact that the bodies least disposed to respond to the stimulus of galvanism are those which form the exceptions to the almost universal exhibition of rigidity—those, namely, which have been killed by lightning, and by blows on the pit of the stomach. Some poisons, too, leave the corpse quite flaccid and flexible.