The organic life remains with the old man after the almost total loss of his animal life, and terminates in a very different manner from that which is exemplified in the case of violent and sudden death. The latter has two periods, the first of which is marked by the sudden cessation of respiration and the circulation, the second by the slow and gradual extinction of the other organic functions. The parietes of the stomach, for instance, continue to act upon the aliment which may be found there, the juices of the stomach continue to dissolve it. The experiments of the English and Italian physicians upon absorption, (experiments the whole of which I have repeated) have proved that this function not unfrequently remains in a state of activity, after the general death of the body, and if not as long as some have supposed, at least for a very considerable interval. Discharges of urine and feces are often observed to take place many hours after sudden death. The process of nutrition also continues to be manifest in the hair and in the nails; the same would doubtless be the case in all the other parts, as well as in the secretions, could we observe the insensible movements of which their functions are the result. The heart of the frog being taken away, the capillary circulation may still be seen under the influence of the tonic powers. The body is very slow also in losing its animal heat.[55] I might augment the above observations with a number of others, which would go to prove the same assertions; on the contrary, in the death which is the effect of old age, the whole of the functions cease, because they have each of them been successively extinguished. The vital powers abandon each organ by degrees, digestion languishes, the secretions and the absorptions are finished, the capillary secretions become embarrassed; lastly, the general circulation is suppressed. The heart is the ultimum moriens. Such, then, is the great difference which distinguishes the death of the old man, from that which is the effect of a sudden blow. In the one, the powers of life begin to be extinguished in all the parts, and cease at the heart; the body dies from the circumference towards the centre: in the other, life becomes extinct at the heart, and afterwards in the parts. The phenomena of death are seen extending themselves from the centre to the circumference. FOOTNOTES: