Page:Life and death (1911).djvu/343

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All we have to do is to restore to them an appropriate ambient medium. The whole question is one of knowing and being able to realize, for this or that part which we wish to reanimate and to rejuvenate, the very special or very delicate conditions that this medium must fulfil. As we have said, success is attained in this respect as far as the heart is concerned, and this is why we are able to reanimate and to revive the heart of a dead man. It is hoped that ideas along these lines will extend with the progress of physiology.

After this sketch of the conditions and of the varieties of cellular death we must return to the essential problem which is engaging the curiosity of biologists and philosophers. Is death unavoidable, inevitable? Is it the necessary consequence of life itself, the inevitable issue, the inevitable end?

There are two ways of endeavouring to solve this question of the inevitability of death. The first is to examine popular observation, practised, so to speak, unintelligently and without special precautions. The second is to analyze everything we know relative to the conditions of elementary life.