ABSTRACT
Death is a personal event that no one ever has been able to describe for himself. On the other hand, in no known society is the individual left to face death completely uninitiated. As a rule, social institutions have evolved to facilitate life and to prevent death. Indeed, the demographic history of man shows that he has been more interested in death control than in birth control. Throughout the whole world, between fifty and sixty million will die. Considering a phenomenon of such wide and deep personal significance, knowledge of how contemporary man relates to death is meager indeed. Although individuals report that they would be most likely to think about death at their own age, there is a strong tendency for them to believe that others think about death mainly in the later years.
