4 THE TONER LECTURES. 



absent, aud on the spur of the moment she started, with one 

 child in her arm, and leading another by the hand, across the 

 fields and over fences to the nearest neighbor, a distance of 

 aboiift one-quarter of a mile. Her previous health had been 

 excellent, but after this perilous night journey she began to be 

 troubled with shortness of breath and severe beating in her 

 chest. The physical signs of an aneurism of the aorta grad- 

 ually became evident, and she died a few months since by the 

 external rupture of an aneurism which had corroded the 

 sternum.* 



This case cannot, perhaps, be adduced as a pure one of mere 

 agitation and fright leading to rent or inj ur^^, since it is possi- 

 ble that the violent exertion in carrying her children may have 

 led to the accident. But even if it did so, it happened when 

 she was previously much excited, and the alarm continued 

 during her flight. In the instance I am about to detail to 3'ou 

 there was no severe muscular effort that accompanied the 

 nervous shock : — 



Some years since a blooming girl of eighteen was brought to 

 my office b}' her mother, to consult me with reference to palpi- 

 tation and shortness of breath on exertion, which had developed 

 themselves suddenly. I found a well-marked aortic, regurgitant 

 lesion. She never had had rlieumatism, had been, indeed, in 

 perfect health until a certain day, and had been remarkable for 

 the ease and endurance with which she rode and walked long 

 distances. But one night — it was in the midst of the trouble- 

 some times in the border States during the civil war — while 

 she and her mother were alone in the house, which stood some 

 distance from any neighbor's, and the father was known to be 

 far away with the army, two men entered the dwelling, and, 

 notwithstanding the entreaty of the mother, slowly ascended the 



* The case will be reported in fnll in the October number of the 

 American Journal of the Medical Sciences by my late clinical assistant, 

 Dr. Webb. 



