Death

Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition.

Proponents of the CDD believe this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead.

For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, a senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time.

These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women).

[36] In the past, the adoption of this whole-brain definition was a conclusion of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980.

[42] There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life," sometimes days later in their coffin or when embalming procedures are about to begin.

Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.

[44] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although some estimates peg the figure to be closer to 800.

By an extremely wide margin, the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging,[48] leading to various complications known as aging-associated diseases.

[54] Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity.

Reductions of these factors, caesarean sections when risks are present, and early detection of birth defects have lowered the rate of stillbirth.

[77] Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being can survive all calamities but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age.

[82] Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing or reversing aging processes through anti-aging measures.

The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply anti-aging methods to attempt to live long enough to benefit from a cure for aging.

[90] Around 1930, most people in Western countries died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls.

[105][106] The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually interred whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures, there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal.

[18] In the English language, blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace (originally the Latin, requiescat in pace) or its initialism RIP.

The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation.

Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet.

In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice.

[112] Death in warfare and suicide attacks also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which translates to "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country", is a concept that dates to antiquity.

[115] In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death,[116] whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin.

Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama, and Father Time.

For many impoverished families, the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing, unofficial, local, and cultural burial, which, in turn, raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates.

[108] Eastern societies (like India) may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli, with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open-air burning-to-ashes.

Seeing a being of light and talking with it, life flashing before the eyes, and the confirmation of cultural beliefs of the afterlife are common themes in NDEs.

[139] The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types, and as a consequence, include the death of somatic line as a regular, genetically regulated part of its life history.

A volcano, a break in the earth's crust that allows lava, ash, and gases to escape, has three states that it may be in, active, dormant, and extinct.

[150] In Hindu texts, death is described as the individual eternal spiritual jiva-atma (soul or conscious self) exiting the current temporary material body.

"[160] 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.