Medicine: Gruesome Peerings

Last week the Lancet, British medical journal, commented in an editorial: "Death has been considered from many points of view, but it is doubtful if there ever has been any systematic investigation into the events surrounding the act of dying. Numerous books described scenes at the deathbeds of celebrated men, while much medical literature is devoted to processes of dissolution and means of postponing it, yet from the scientific point of view there is little information available about the final hours of life."

To fill this astounding hiatus on the bookshelves of science, Dr. Arthur MacDonald, U. S. anthropologist, wrote a letter to the Lancet, printed with the editorial, asking people everywhere to describe to him just how different people die. Whether a person dies in the sweaty writhings of agony or with the weary sigh of resignation, whether he rattles with final rales or lets his breath cease gently, Dr. MacDonald wants to know. It will be interesting to know truthfully how long before death famed men devise their "last" wise words; how long before utter extinction the moribund can sense the torturing presence of the bedside throng.

There is no idle curiosity to Dr. MacDonald's searchings. "It is by no means impossible that the study he suggests might lead to a further wider knowledge which would ease the final hours of those who retain consciousness till the last."