Death is the termination of all biological functions that sustain a living organism . Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging ( senescence), predation , malnutrition, disease , suicide, homicide and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. [1] Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. Death has commonly been considered as a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to having a bond or affection to the person who has died, or having fear of death, necrophobia , anxiety , sorrow , grief, emotional pain , sympathy , compassion , solitude , or saudade . The most common cause of human deaths in the world is heart disease , followed by stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases , and in the third place lower respiratory infections. [2] Etymology The word death comes from Old English deað, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *daulaz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). [3] This comes from the Proto-Indo- European stem *dheu- meaning the Process, act, condition of dying. Associated terms The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death. When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away , passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms. Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and finally a skeleton . The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals. As a polite reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of decease, as in the deceased ; the noun form is decedent . The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, a portmanteau of cremation and remains. Senescence Click to view image of a dead Magpie... A dead Eurasian Magpie Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, known in life sciences as “ senescence”. Some organisms experience negligible senescence , even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii ,[4] the hydra , and the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include suicide and homicide. From all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day. [5] Of these, two thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries—such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany—the rate approaches 90%, i.e., nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence. [5] Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. [6] Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs . In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. As scientific knowledge and medicine advance, a precise medical definition of death becomes more problematic. [7]
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 03:30:47 +0000
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