Vianney, of Lyons, who has shown that it is possible to remove the
head end of several different insect larvæ without preventing their
development and metamorphosis into the butterfly stage. In _Bombyx_
larvæ, for example, the butterflies arrived at the mature stage, with
streaked wings and beautiful coloration, but almost headless. These
anencephalous insects lived for some time.
Few animals survive exposures of any length to a temperature much over
150 F., and most of them are killed by considerably less heat. Freezing
has always been considered equally fatal. Gangrene is the common result
of freezing a part of the human body, and that means local death.
Extraordinary pains must be taken with a frozen ear or finger if its
vitality is to be restored. And so even with the hibernating, or the
cold-blooded animals, a really low temperature has been generally
regarded as fatal.
But the recent experiments of Pictet, who did so much in the production
of exceedingly low temperatures, freezing of gases, etc., have shown
some startling results in the failure to kill goldfish and other of the
lower animals by refrigeration. For instance, goldfish were placed in a
tank whose water was gradually frozen while the fish were still moving
therein. The result was a cake of ice with imprisoned supposedly dead
fish. This ice was then reduced to a still lower temperature, at which
it was maintained for over two months. It was then very slowly thawed
out, whereupon the fish came to life and moved in apparently their
normal and natural ways as if nothing had happened.
This confirms Pictet's early experiments and convictions, that if the
chemical reactions of living organisms can be suspended without causing
organic lesions the phenomena of life will temporarily disappear, to
return when conditions are again as usual. It is worth relating that
his fish frozen in this way could be broken in small pieces just as if
they were part of the ice itself.
How often during these recent decades when events have seemed to move
faster, when discoveries and inventions have been announced at such
frequent and brief intervals that we fail to note them all for lack
of time, when haste and rush characterize habits alike of life and
thought, do we find that we simply must stop, as it were for breath,
while we unload a large amount of accumulated mental rubbish and
clear a space in our storage capacity for up-to-date knowledge! It is
a decennial mental house-cleaning process. We must unlearn so much
of that which ten to forty years ago we so laboriously learned. We
must adopt new and improved reasoning processes. But it is hard to do
all this. For instance, as a boy I learned the old chemistry quite
thoroughly. During a subsequent interval, when I did not need to study
it, came the new chemistry, and when I again required it I had not
only to study a practically new science--which was not so bad--but
to rid my brain of much that had really found firm lodgment there,
and this was difficult or impossible. So it is with one who, having
been brought up on Euclidean geometry, finds himself confronted with
the comparatively new non-Euclidean, and who has then not merely to
forget, but to unlearn all those fundamental axioms which seemed so
plain and so indisputable, that is, if he would accept the teachings of
Bolyai and others. For example, that a straight line is not necessarily
the shortest route between two points shocks our Euclidean orthodoxy,
and is at the same time, _to us_, inconceivable; as also that parallel
lines indefinitely prolonged _may_ touch, and the like; likewise the
concept of four-dimensional spaces, or worse yet, _n_-dimensional. And
now, in somewhat like manner and to a certain degree, must we revise
our previous conceptions of death, at least to this extent: Not that we
yet know much better than we did what it really is, but that we know
more about what it is not. Even save, perhaps, in its instantaneous
happening it is _but a step_ toward dissolution, usually not the first,
certainly not the last, but yet the most conspicuous.
Death is in many respects a biochemical fact. It is so intertwined with
ionic changes in the arrangement of matter that we may hope for more
information regarding some of its aspects as knowledge of the latter
accumulates.
But, evidently, we need to clarify our notions as we rearrange our
facts. Somatic death is, after all, a most complex process. It may be
shortened by instant and complete incineration, but scarcely in any
other way. Even dynamite would scarcely simplify the problem. As to
conscious death, that is _probably_ (though not certainly) a matter
of seconds only or possibly fractions of a second. While we have no
accurate appreciation of what constitutes consciousness, nor even just
where it resides, the central nervous system appears to be its most
probable seat. But conscious death may occur almost instantly without
injury to this system, as when a bullet passes through the thorax and
the heart, without injuring the spine.
But what is it that suddenly checks all concerted and interdependent
activity? Or does something or some controlling agency suddenly leave
the body?
A recent theory, having features to commend it, is to the effect that
life is a property or a feature of the ultimate _corpuscles_ which
compose the atom. Since these corpuscles bear to their containing
atom a relative size comparable to that of the tiniest visible insect
winging its way in a large church edifice, the intricacies of this
particular theory readily appear. But it does seem as though among
ourselves life has much to do with the hitherto neglected and despised
nitrogen atom or molecule, since life inheres _par excellence_ in
nitrogen compounds. Moreover, _vitality is conspicuously a feature of
those chemical elements which have the lowest atomic weight_, while at
the other end of the table of atomic weights stands radium, of whose
destructive emanations I have already spoken.
Another phase of the general subject of thanatology was suggested
especially by Osier, who a few years ago called attention to the fact
that but few, if any patients really die of the disease from which
they have been suffering. This is not a paradox, and needs only
reason and observation to confirm it. His statement was a preliminary
to the consideration of terminal infections and toxemias, which of
itself would be sufficient to erect thanatology into a dignified
special study. Take, for instance, a patient who has long suffered
from diabetes. The end is characterized by coma, i. e., an evidence
of profound toxemia, and is in large measure due to acetonemia. A
patient with chronic Bright's disease dies of uremic poisoning, or
one with pneumonia dies of genuine heart-failure. The terminal stage
of cancer is, again, toxemia of one kind or another, according as it
has interfered with digestion, with respiration, or some other vital
function, or has broken down, thus saturating the patient with septic
products.
This aspect of the subject will bear any amount of study and
elaboration, and its mention here should be sufficient for my purpose.
Accordingly as it is properly appreciated, it will be recognized as
having an important practical bearing, since, if we may foresee the
direction from which the final danger threatens, it may be the better
and the longer averted.
Another very important and practical subject is wrapped up in this
one, namely, the utilization of apparently dead, or at least of only
potentially living material (tissue) in the various methods of grafting
or transplantation, which are to-day a part of the surgeon's work. The
methods are themselves a transplantation of experiences gained by work
in the vegetable kingdom. What wonder that the marvels revealed in one
department should have incited work along parallel lines in the other?
That flowers and fruit of one kind may be made to grow on a tree of a
very different kind excites but a small amount of the astonishment it
deserves, mainly because it is now a common occurrence, though properly
regarded it might seem a miracle.
Differing only in minor respect is, for example, the removal of
thyroidal tissue from one human being and its implantation into
another, with functional success. One may ask just here, how is
this matter concerned with thanatology? And the reply is: If this
tissue were taken from a fresh corpse it would be by most people
regarded as dead tissue. If so, does the dead come to life? Without
violating the proper scientific use of the imagination one may
fancy something like the following: Let a healthy young woman meet
accidental and instantaneous death. It would be possible to use no
inconsiderable portion of her body for grafting or other justifiable
surgical procedures. The arteries and nerves could be used, both in
the fresh state, and the former even after preservation, for suitable
transplantation or repair work on the vascular and nervous systems
of a considerable number of other people. So also could the thyroid,
the cornea, the ovaries and especially the bones. All the teeth, if
healthy, could be reimplanted. With the thin bones, ribs especially,
plastic operations--particularly on the noses--of fifty people
could be made. And then the exterior of the body could be made to
supply any amount of normal integument with which to do heterologous
dermatoplastic operations, or would furnish an almost inexhaustible
supply of epidermis for Thiersch grafts, which latter material need not
be used in the fresh state, but could be preserved and made available
some days and even weeks later. A portion of the muscles might possibly
be made available for checking oozing from bleeding surfaces of others,
if used while still fresh and warm, and possibly portions of the
ureters or some other portion of the remains might be utilized for some
unusual purpose. Then what extracts or extractives might be prepared
from other parts of the body, pituitary, adrenals, bone-marrow, etc.?
The tendons might also be prepared for sutures. Every one of these
procedures would give promise of success, the technic being in every
respect satisfactory.
But the possible limit is not yet reached, since with each kidney might
be carried out experiments like those feats of physiologic jugglery
such as Carrel has shown us, by implanting one, say in the neck,
connecting up the renal with the carotid artery, and the renal vein
with the jugular, while some receptacle would have to be provided as a
terminal for the ureter.
This is, after all, not a fantastic dream, nor such an extreme
picture as would at first appear, since every organ or tissue
above-mentioned--and more--has been used as indicated, and with success.
But imagine the dead body affording viable products, even indirectly
life itself, to (possibly) so many others! Does this complicate the
study of death? And what must become of the simple credulous faith of
the zealot who believes in the actual and absolute resurrection, at
some later date?
There is something more than mere transcendentalism in the science of
thanatology; it has a plausible medico-legal and pragmatic import.
Right glad should I be if I might arouse a deserved interest in it.
How may I more fittingly conclude than by quoting a few lines from our
own Bryant's "Thanatopsis":
"Earth that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements."
Though were I minded to rehearse certain difficulties met in the
preparation of this paper, which I have long had in mind, I might also
add the following lines from the same poet's "Hymn to Death":
"Alas! I little thought that the stern power
Whose fateful praise I sung, would try me thus
Before the strain was ended."
One may well quote, at this point, Lamartine, who asked, "What is life
but a series of preludes to that mystery whose initial solemn note
is tolled by death?" (On this theme Liszt built up that wonderful
symphonic tone poem "Les Preludes.")
Even infinity is now questioned by the mathematicians. This being the
case, where shall we, where can _we_ stop?
NOTE.--While writing the foregoing paper there came to my notice the
recent book "Death; Its Causes and Phenomena," by Carrington and
Meader (London, 1911). It is interesting, but save that it contains a
helpful bibliography, is of little assistance to one wishing to pursue
the study from its pragmatic aspect. One of the authors is committed
to a personal theory that death is caused by cessation of the
vibrations which during life maintain vital activity; the other that
death is, as it were, the culmination of a bad habit of expectancy
that something of the kind must occur, into which we have fallen, in
spite of the fact that other living beings below man undergo the same
fate, though not capable of expecting anything.
III
SERPENT-MYTHS AND SERPENT-WORSHIP[3]
[3] A Presidential Address before the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences.
Since the dawn of written history, and from the most remote periods,
the serpent has been regarded with the highest veneration as the most
mysterious of living creatures. Being alike an object of wonder,
admiration and fear, it is not strange that it became early connected
with numerous superstitions; and when we remember how imperfectly
understood were its habits we shall not wonder at the extraordinary
attributes with which it was invested, nor perhaps even why it
obtained so general a worship. Thus centuries ago Horapollo referring
to serpent symbolism, said: "When the Egyptians were representing a
universe they delineated the spectacle as a variegated snake devouring
its own tail, the scales intimating the stars in the universe, the
animal being extremely heavy, as is the earth, and extremely slippery
like the water; moreover it every year puts off its old age with its
skin as, in the universe, the recurring year effects a corresponding
change, and becomes renovated, while the making use of its own body for
food implies that all things whatever which are generated by divine
providence in the world undergo a corruption into them again."
In all probability the annual shedding of the skin and the supposed
rejuvenation of the animal was that which first connected it with
the idea of eternal succession of form, subsequent reproduction and
dissolution. This doctrine is typified in the notion of the succession
of ages which prevailed among the Greeks, and the similar notion met
with among nearly all primitive peoples. The ancient mysteries, with
few or perhaps no exceptions, were all intended to illustrate the
grand phenomena of nature. The mysteries of Osiris, Isis and Horus in
Egypt; of Cybele in Phrygia, of Ceres and Proserpine at Eleusis, of
Venus and Adonis in Phoenicia, of Bona Dea and of Priapus in Rome,
all had this in in common, that they both mystified and typified the
creation of things and the perpetuation of life. In all of them the
serpent was conspicuously introduced as it symbolized and indicated
the invigorating energy of nature. In the mysteries of Ceres, the
grand secret which was communicated to the initiates was put in this
enigma,--"The bull has begotten a serpent and the serpent a bull,"
the bull being a prominent emblem of generative force. In ancient
Egypt it was usually the bull's horns which served as a symbol for the
entire animal. When with the progress of centuries the bull became too
expensive an animal to be commonly used for any purpose, the ram was
substituted; hence the frequency of the ram's horns, as a symbol for
Jove, seen so frequently, for example, among Roman antiquities.
Originally fire was taken to be one of the emblems of the sun, and thus
most naturally, inevitably and universally the sun came to symbolize
the active, vivifying principle of nature. That the serpent should
in time typify the same principle, while the egg symbolized the more
passive or feminine element, is equally certain but less easy of
explanation; indeed we are to regard the serpent as the symbol of the
great hermaphrodite first principle of nature. "It entered into the
mythology of every nation, consecrated almost every temple, symbolized
almost every deity, was imagined in the heavens, stamped on the earth
and ruled in the realms of eternal sorrow." For this animal was
estimated to be the most spirited of all reptiles of fiery nature,
inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible celerity, moving by its spirit
without hands or feet or any of the external members by which other
animals effect their motion, while in its progress it assumes a variety
of forms, moving in a spiral course and darting forward with whatever
degree of swiftness it pleases.
The close relationship if not absolute identity among the early races
of man between Solar, Phallic and Serpent worship was most striking;
so marked indeed as to indicate that they are all forms of a single
worship. It is with the latter that we must for a little while concern
ourselves. How prominent a place serpent worship plays in our own
Old Testament will be remarked as soon as one begins to reflect upon
it. The part played by the serpent in the biblical myth concerning
the origin of man is the first and most striking illustration. In the
degenerated ancient mysteries of Bacchus some of the persons who took
part in the ceremonies used to carry serpents in their hands and with
horrid screams call "Eva, Eva;" the attendants were in fact often
crowned with serpents while still making these frantic cries. In the
Sabazian mysteries the snake was permitted to slip into the bosom
of the person to be initiated and then to be removed from below the
clothing. This ceremony was said to have originated among the Magi. It
has been held that the invocation "Eva" related to the great mother of
mankind; even so good an authority as Clemens of Alexandria held to
this opinion, but Clemens also acknowledges that the name Eva, when
properly aspirated is practically the same as Epha, or Opha, which the
Greeks call Ophis, which is, in English, serpent. In most of the other
mysteries serpent rites were introduced and many of the names were
extremely suggestive. The Abaddon mentioned in the book of Revelation
is certainly some serpent deity, since the prefix Ab, signifies not
only father, but serpent. By Zoroaster the expanse of the heavens and
even nature itself was described under the symbol of the serpent. In
ancient Persia temples were erected to the serpent tribe, and festivals
consecrated to their honor, some relic of this being found in the word
Basilicus, or royal serpent, which gives rise to the term Basilica
applied to the Christian churches of the present era. The Ethiopians,
even, of the present day derive their name from the Greek Aithiopes,
meaning the serpent gods worshipped long before them; again, the Island
of Euboea signifies the Serpent Island and properly spelled should be
Oub-Aia. The Greeks claimed that Medusa's head was brought by Perseus,
by which they mean the serpent deity, as the worship was introduced
into Greece by a people called Peresians. The head of Medusa denoted
divine wisdom, while the Island was sacred to the serpent. The worship
of the serpent being so old, many places as well as races received
names indicating the prevalence of this general superstition; but this
is no time to catalogue names,--though one perhaps should mention
Ophis, Oboth, Eva in Macedonia, Dracontia, and last but not least, the
name of Eve and the Garden of Eden.
Seth was, according to some, a semi-divine first ancestor of the
Semites; Bunsen has shown that several of the antedeluvian descendants
of Adam were among the Phoenician deities; thus Carthagenians had
as God, Yubal or Jubal who would appear to have been the sun-god of
Esculapius; or, spelled more correctly, Ju-Baal, that is Beauty of Baal.
Whether or not the serpent symbol has a distinct phallic reference has
been disputed, but the more the subject is broadly studied the more it
would seem that such is the case. It must certainly appear that the
older races had that form of belief with which the serpent was always
more or less symbolically connected, that is, adoration of the male
principle of generation, one of whose principal phases was undoubtedly
ancestor worship, while somewhat later the race adored the female
principle which they symbolized by the sacred tree so often alluded
to in Scripture as the Assyrian grove. Whether snakes be represented
singly, coupled in pairs as in the well known Caduceus or Rod of
Esculaipius, or in the crown placed upon the head of many a god and
goddess, or the many headed snake drinking from the jewelled cup, or
a snake twisted around a tree with another approaching it, suggesting
temptation and fall,--in all these the underlying principle is always
the same. Symbols of this character are met with not only in the
temples of ancient Egypt but in ruins antedating them in Persia and the
East; in the antiquities belonging to the races that first peopled what
is now Greece and Italy, in the rock markings of India and of Central
Europe, in the Cromlechs of Great Britain and Scandinavia, in the Great
Serpent Mound which still remains in Ohio, and in many other mounds
left by the mound builders of this country, in the ruins of Central
America and Yucatan, and in the traditions and relics of the Aztecs and
Toltecs,--in fact wherever antiquarian research has penetrated or where
monuments of ancient peoples remain. There never has been so widespread
a superstition, and no matter what later forms it may have assumed we
must admit that it, first of all, and for a long time was man's tribute
to the great, all powerful and unknown regenerative principle of
nature, which has been deified again and again, and which always has
been and always will be the greatest mystery within the ken of mankind.
Brown in his "Great Dionysiak Myth" says the serpent has these points
of connection with Dionysus, (1) as a symbol of and connected with
wisdom, (2) as a solar emblem, (3) as a symbol of time and eternity,
(4) as an emblem of the earth, life, (5) as connected with the
fertilizing mystery, (6) as a phallic emblem. Referring to the last
of these he says: "The serpent being connected with the sun, the
earth, life and fertility, must needs be also a phallic emblem, and
was appropriate to the cult of Dionysos Priapos." Again, Sir G. W.
Cox says, "It is unnecessary to analyze theories which profess to
see in it worship of the creeping brute or the wide-spreading tree;
a religion based upon the worship of the venomous reptile must have
been a religion of terror. In the earliest glimpses which we have
the serpent is the symbol of life and of love, nor is the phallic
cultus in any respect a cult of the full grown branching tree." Again,
"This religion, void of reason, condemned in the wisdom of Solomon,
probably survived even Babylonian captivity; certainly it was adopted
by the sects of Christians which were known as Ophites, Gnostics and
Nicolaitans."