This text is a reprint of the Preface of Awareness of Dying (1965)

Abstract

Recently The New York Times reported: "VERY ILL CHILDREN TOLD OF DISEASE; Leukemia Patients at N.I.H. Not Shielded From Truth. . . . A child should always be told the truth, even when he has an incurable disease such as leukemia, according to two researchers who interviewed 51 children hospitalized at the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, for treatment of leukemia." This kind of news item reflects the growing concern among researchers and public about matters which touch on morality as much as on the technical aspects of medicine. The rapidly increasing proportion of elderly people in the American population presents a range of personal and social questions; not the least is how they view their newly won longevity (often including anticipated years of chronic disease) as well as their attitudes toward death. In consequence, many geriatric specialists are beginning to study American attitudes toward death, while others, spurred on by what seems a sense-less prolonging of life within hospital walls by medical technology run wild, are raising questions about death and dying in American life.