ABSTRACT
“When all is said and done it seems ironic that the end point of existence, which ought to be clear and sharp as in a chemical titration, should so defy the power of words to describe it and the power of men to say with certainty, ‘It is here.’” This was the conclusion of an editorial published in the 1968 Journal of the American Medical Association as part of a response to Christian Barnard’s first heart transplant. Though it would appear that much has changed since then, the medical community is still in a quandary about declaring time of death with certainty. In fact, it has been argued that there is no moment of death. No transition, it appears, is more enigmatic than that between life and death.
