b THE TONER LECTURES. 



aud that without this agitation normal life will not be inter- 

 fered with. But before passmg on to the consideration of 

 other matters, let me, in confirmation of the idea that there 

 may be a slight alteration, under ordinary circumstances in- 

 nocuous, but becoming serious under strain, tell you that I 

 have occasionally, in 2^osf-motiem examinations, found valves 

 with slight fissures in them. In this drawing (Fig. 1), taken 



Fig. 1. 



«/•" 

 //^ 



from a specimen now in the Museum of the Pennsylvania Hos- 

 pital, I show you such a state of the valves — not a lesion, you 

 perceive, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have occa- 

 sioned marked disorder, but sufficient to have produced a rent 

 under any strain, or severe and sudden abnormal working of 

 the organ. 



We have thus examined into the effect of strain or violent 

 agitation in developing rapidly organic disease of the heart or 

 its great vessels. Let us now investigate another part of the 

 subject, and study the functional excitement of the heart and 

 its consequences, when the excitement acts through a longer 

 period of time — when we have, therefore, continued over-action 

 and over-work. There are various groups which present 

 themselves here to view, but as it will not be possible to 

 do more than examine a few of them, I shall endeavor to 



