SLEEP AND DEATH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9036, 17 September 1907, Page 2

SLEEP AND DEATH.

o AN ANALYSIS. The phenomenon called sleep may be summed up in the following propositions, says a writer in the " Cosmopolitan " :— Firstly : Sleep is temporary death of the functions of the sensitive system, duo to exhaustion by fatigue. Secondly: This death is temporary because the vital system continues to ! perform its functions during sleep and I restores the sensitive organs to their normal condition. For our purpose death may be considered under the three heads — natural death, sudden death, and death from disease. Natural death is death from old age. It differs from natural sleep only in degree. The gradual loss of sensibility by the sensitive organs which precedes sleep now takes place in the vital system, and all the organs pass into permanent sleep together. There can be no pain preceding or at the moment of such a death, any more than there is pain preceding and at the moment of passing j into temporary sleep, j Sudden death may be denned as j death due to sudden injury from withI out or within the body sufficient to des--1 troy at once all irritability of both the ! sensitive and vital systems. It requires •no argument to prove that a person who is suddenly stricken dead can suffer no pain. The element of time must ! be present in order to suffer physical ' pain, and in the sudden death of a per- , son the element of time is absent. We come now to consider the third and by far the most frequent form of ; death, namely, death from disease. As soon as diser.ee is established dy- ; ing begins, which is but a more rapid ' than natural ceasing of all sensibilities, ; accompanied with more or less suffer- ! ing, according to thf cause which pro- ■ duces it. This dying and suffering, 1 called disease, must terminate either in so-called death, which is insensibility to it, or in recovery, which is removal of the cause of it. But in any event, the '] suffering has been endured, no matter I whether the final termination is death i or recovery. j No one is conscious of or can recall I the moment he passes from waking into ' natural or temporary sleep. Nor shall i we, by a "supreme agony" or in any ! other "way, be conscious of passing into permanent sleep. Being born and dying are the two most important physiological events in ■ the life history of our bodies, and wo ; shall know no more about the latter j event at the tim*. it occurs than we did j about the former.