APOPLEXY. 707 



mediately. In fact, the evidences of impairment by any bad habit are 

 seldom apparent during the prime of youthful vigor. But the mis- 

 chief is going on nevertheless, and the organ upon which the weight 

 of infringement falls will be the one that will first manifest signs of 

 disease, and through which death will make its conquest over the 

 body. 



Besides this weakening of the vessels upon which the strong impulse 

 of blood from the heart falls at the rate of sixty times a minute, and 

 the very little external support such defective vessels receive from the 

 soft and pulpy brain, there is another source of danger by a break, in 

 the extraordinary ebbs and tides of blood to which the contents of the 

 cranium are subject. During sleep the brain is almost bloodless; its 

 substance seems to shrink into a lifeless mass ; but the moment that 

 wakefulness occurs it swells out, gets red, its arteries and veins becom- 

 ing distended with a great tide of blood. No other part of the body 

 is subject to such droughts and floods in its blood-circulation. This 

 inequality is yet further increased by severe mind-labor. The ardent 

 student is well aware that deep thought heats the head and cools the 

 feet. The brain is then receiving more than an ordinary supply of 

 blood and the feet less. 



The first apoplectic stroke, as a rule, is not a severe one. Some- 

 times the condition of the cerebral circulation is simply that of active 

 congestion ; but more commonly a little blood escapes by a tiny vent, 

 the shock to the system slows and enfeebles the action of the heart, the 

 distention of the ruptured vessel is thus lessened, the escape of blood 

 ceases, and Nature, by means of a slight inflammation, heals the part 

 torn, and in due time removes the blood-clot by absorption. 



The process by which a weakened blood-vessel is ruptured by in- 

 ternal distention may be illustrated by observing the effect of attempt- 

 ing to force through an old water-hose attached to a fire-engine a large 

 and rapid stream of water. The weakness of the hose is first shown 

 by the escape of tiny jets of water ; but by-and-by a larger vent occurs, 

 allowing the water to escape in a flood. Just so it is with the progres- 

 sive weakening with the blood-vessels in the brain the escape of blood 

 is at first small ; then, under a greater tension than ordinary, a larger 

 rent is made, allowing the blood to escape in hopeless profusion. It 

 was probably these well-known features of apoplectic strokes that led 

 the great Napoleon's medical adviser to make his celebrated reply in 

 reference to this disease, of which the emperor stood in great dread : 

 " Sire, the first attack is a warning, the second a summons, the third a 

 summons to execution." 



Those who have a family tendency to apoplexy and are desirous to 

 escape it, will, of course, avoid all the causes above referred to, espe- 

 cially those which tend to destroy the elasticity and strength of the 

 blood-channels in the brain, or, in other words, to weaken the structure 

 and life of those parts. But suppose, as is too often the case, that the 



