The face of death

Author: Sherwin Nuland
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-04-01
Features: Medicine breaks the natural balance of life and death, yet misleads humans to resist the inevitable death. Death is a series of destructive processes, gradually eroding human nature. The desire for a "dignified death" is a long-standing, hard-to-let go psychological and social placebo. Heart disease, inevitable aging, Alzheimer's disease, accidents, suicide, and euthanasia; AIDS, and cancer have taken many lives, further revealing the shared journey of human decline. The face of death repeats itself with the expressions of hypoxia, hunger, and the loss of brain function, the agonizing separation of the soul from the body—few are spared. Understanding the true face of death can avoid unintentional interference from well-intentioned actions. The victory of professional medicine is not necessarily the happiness of life's terminator. Neither late nor early death is the right choice.