Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1913 — Little Use to Make a Fuss Over the Transition [ARTICLE]

Little Use to Make a Fuss Over the Transition

Death does not hurt. Only the unnatural images of it cause distress, and for that reason Dr. Howard A. Knox, an assistant surgeon of tfie United States public -health service at Ellis Island, tells mankind not to take death so seriously, in his paper in the current number of the Medical Record. - Fear of death is simply a nervous disease—a phobia which he thinks should b 6 overcome. It merely means the emigration to other shores. - “Like the fear of ghosts and dark places,” writes Dr. Knox, “the morbid fear of death is frequently implanted in the childish mind by unthinking older persons; there*' fore we ought never to depict death and the grave either to ourselves or to others, especially to children, in more somber colors than really belong to them. Gloomy images of this kind serve only to disturb the imagination and exercise a baneful influence over the impressionable mind of ‘the child; These influences are generally permanent, for we well know that many otherwise levelheaded adults are somewhat disturbed by stories of the supernatural, and .those persons may step from dark cellars at night with more haste than grace. “This phobia in some cases is due to nothing more remote than a sedentary existance with too much time for reflection, and is frequently seen in unmarried persons who are too much alotfe and have no absorbing hobby. Exercise, work, amusement and congenial companionship will do more than the best argument and suggestion. “The dying are as little conscious of the transition from life to death as the weary are aware of the transition -from the waking to the sleeping state. Many persons have waited with full consciousness the moment of dissolution and have been aware of it in advance, and yet they fell asleep smiling and without fear. Their imagination had not been previously excited. Illness may be painful, but Its cessation, never.” z Dr. Knox closes his article with the words of St. Paul, who asked of the grave where is its victory, of death, its sting. .