How we die: reflections on life's final chapter PDF
Preview How we die: reflections on life's final chapter
Acclaim for Sherwin B. N uland's HOW WE DIE "The story comes from a sensitive observer . . . who has seen much, taken much thought, and written it all down with a superi or gift for descriptive narrative. . . . Nuland's meditations ... reflect a pragmatic, measured skepticism permeated by an intensely human compassion." -Washington Post Book World "Powerfully eloquent . . . a relentlessly frank and graphic descrip tion of the ways human life achieves its terminus." -The New York Times "As powerful and sensitive, and unsparing and unsentimental as anything I have ever read. " -Oliver Sacks "Nuland proposes what almost anyone who has been touched by death will recognize as common sense .... [He] never shies away from the cultural implications of his profession .... You cannot read How We Die without becoming aware of your body, if only . . . to ask it impermissible questions. You put the book down merely to pick it up again." -The New Yorker "Stunningly frank . . . strips away the fantasy about what happens when the body stops." -Newsweek "Any reader who is not still convinced of his own mortality ... is bound to be altered in some profound way by this book. . . . This is knowledge we all should have." -USA Today "Nuland combines the clinical eye of a trained physician with ... emotional and philosophical reflectiveness." -Newsday Sherwin B. N uland HOW WE DIE Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D., is the author of Doctors: The Biography of Medicine. He teaches surgery and the history of medicine at Yale, and is also Literary Editor of Connecticut Medicine and Chairman of the Board of Managers of th:e Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. In addition to his numerous articles for medical publications, he has written for The New Yorker, The New Republic, and Discover magazine. His book The Origins of Anesthesia is a volume in the Classics of Medicine Library. Dr. Nuland and his family live in Hamden, Connecticut. Also by Sherwin B. N uland The Origins of Anesthesia Doctors: The Biography of Medicine Medicines: The Arl of Healing The Face of Mercy HOW WE DIE HOW WE DIE Reflections on Life's Final Chapter Sherwin B. N uland VINTAGE BOOKS A Division of Random House, Inc. New York F I RST V I NTAGE BOO KS ED I T I O N, JANUARY 1995 Copyright © 1993 by Sherwin B. Nuland Illustrotions copyright © 1993 by Michael R Dulude All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1994. The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows: Nuland, Sherwin B. How we die I Sherwin B. Nuland. p. em. Includes index. ISBN: o-679-41461-4 1. Death. I. Title. BD444.N85 1994 616.o7'8-dczo 93-24590 CIP Vintage ISBN: o-679-74244-1 Manufactured in the United States of America 579C86 To my brothers, Harvey Nuland and Vittorio Ferrero . . . death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits. -John Webster, The Duchess of Malft, 1612 Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction XV I. The Strangled Heart 3 II. A Valentine-and How It Fails 20 III. Three Score and Ten 43 IV. Doors to Death of the Aged 64 v. Alzheimer's Disease 8g VI. Murder and Serenity 118 VII. Accidents, Suicide, and Euthanasia 140 VIII. A Story of AIDS 163 IX. The Life of a Virus and the Death of a Man 180 x. The Malevolence of Cancer 202 XI. Hope and the Cancer Patient 222 XII. The Lessons Learned 242 Epilogue 263 Index 271
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