[When are we dead? Still debates!]

When are we dead? Still debates ! Set the time of death has always raised many debates. They oppose vitalists and pragmatics. The first accept death when it was full, having reached the last cell and were not in hurry to declare the death, before the beginning of body rot. The latter considered that death was real since the process that induces death was irreversible, without waiting for body damage; they have therefore been constantly seeking for "the" sign that would mark that irreversibility. This sign, namely the extended shutdown of the heart beat, was not finally accepted until the late nineteenth century. He was supplanted some sixty years later, because of advances in resuscitation by the signs of brain death. The heart has been replaced by the brain as the seat of life, or at least of the person, being recognized that in current conditions, the disappearance of the person defines death. The debate is not over because if the time of the diagnosis of death is not always easy in case of heart beating brain death, it becomes impossible, at least in the short term, in case of death after irreversible cardiac arrest. This therefore requires, in this instance, to define in advance the time indispensable to the irreversible deterioration of the brain. This can, we imagine, sow doubt. But if the risk was previously that of premature burial, it is currently a loss of opportunity and or possible premature organ retrieval.