358 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



duced by oyerwlielming mental emotions, and marks the acme of such 

 perturbing passions as terror, anguish, despair, etc. 



In these cases and some others it appears to be the result of a pure- 

 ly nervous impression ; while in still others, as in malarial fevers, of 

 which it has been known to form a complication, the immediate cause 

 is of a somewhat different nature. While in some cases it has been 

 associated with scurvy, purpura, and other blood-diseases, this has not 

 generally been the case. It has been simulated chiefly by enthusiastic 

 and dishonest pietists. 



Examples of the affection may be found extending throughout the 

 whole range of medical literature, as well modern as ancient, and from 

 a study of these we shall best be able to bring into view its numerous 

 and varying phases. 



The eminent French historian De Thou mentions the case of an 

 Italian officer who commanded at Monte-Maro, a fortress of Piedmont, 

 during the war in 1552 between Henry II of France and the Emperor 

 Charles V. This officer, having been treacherously seized by order of 

 the hostile general, and threatened with public execution unless he 

 surrendered the place, was so agitated at the prospect of an ignomini- 

 ous death that he sweated blood from every part of his body. 



The same writer relates a similar occurrence in the person of a 

 young Florentine at Rome, unjustly put to death by the order of Pope 

 Sixtus Y, in the beginning of his reign, and concludes the narration as 

 follows ; " When the youth was led forth to execution, he excited the 

 commiseration of many, and through excess of grief was observed to 

 shed bloody tears, and to discbarge blood instead of sweat from his 

 whole body — a circumstance which many regard as a certain proof 

 that Nature condemned the severity of a sentence so cruelly hastened, 

 and invoked vengeance against the magistrate himself, as therein guilty 

 of murder." 



Among several examples, given in the German " Ephemerides," of 

 bloody tears and bloody sweat occasioned by extreme fear, more espe- 

 cially the fear of death, may be mentioned that of " a young boy who, 

 having taken part in a crime for which two of his elder brothers were 

 hanged, was exposed to public view under the gallows on which they 

 were executed, and was thereupon observed to sweat blood from his 

 whole body." 



It is mentioned by Theophrastus, and by Aristotle, who says, " Some 

 have a bloody sweat," and again, " Some through an ill habit of body 

 have sweat a bloody excrement." 



And Diodorus Siculus says of the Indian serpents that, if any one 

 be bitten by them, he is tormented with excessive pains, and seized 

 with a bloody sweat. Galen observes, " Contingere interdum poros 

 ex multo aut fervido spiritu adeo dilatari, ut etiam exeat sanguis 

 per eos fiatque sudor sanguineus " (Sometimes the pores become so 

 much dilated by rapid or fervid breathing that the blood oozes out 



