rare. [f. Gr. θάνατος death + -LOGY. Cf. F. thanatologie.] The scientific study of death, its causes and phenomena. So Thanatological a., of or pertaining to thanatology: Thanatologist, a student of or a person versed in thanatology; in quot. 1901 (nonce-use), one who studies dead animals.
1842. Dunglison, Med. Lex., Thanatology, a description, or the doctrine, of death.
1862. G. W. Balfour, trans. Casper’s Forensic Med., II. Title-p., Thanatological division.
1881. G. R. Jesse, in Athenæum, 9 April, 504/1. This sums up the thanatological results of an enormous amount of cruelty in previous experiments.
1901. E. Selous, Bird Watching, viii. 224. We have studied animals only to kill them, or killed them in order to study them. Our zoologists’ have been thanatologists.
1903. Mitchell, trans. Metchnikoff’s Nat. Man, xii. (1904), 298. The scientific study of old age and of death, two branches of science that may be called gerontology and thanatology.
