gud §, No 25,, June 21. °56.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
497 
venal, vi. 540., speaks of a large goose given as a 
sacred donation to propitiate the anger of Osiris; 
and Ovid describes the bird as contributing its 
liver to a feast in honour of Io: 
“Nec defensa juvant Capitolia, quo minus anser 
Det jecur in lances, Inachi lauta, tuas.” 
Fast., i. 453-4. 
Tn conclusion, it may be remarked that a fabu- 
lous story, illustrative of the loquacious habits of 
the goose, is told by Plutarch in his Treatise on 
Garrulity, c. 14. When the wild) geese, he says, 
in going from Cilicia, cross the range of Taurus, 
which abounds in eagles, they take a large stone 
in their beaks, in order to restrain their voice, and 
they thus escape over the mountain during the 
night without being observed. L. 
—— 
BROKEN HEARTS: CRUCIFIXION, 
(2 S. i. 432.) 
Crucifixion is a very ancient mode of punish- 
ment; it has long existed in China; it was prac- 
tised by the Carthaginians, and is mentioned as in 
use when the Assyrian history begins (Diod. Sic. ii. 
c. i.), in the time of Ninus, by whom Pharnus, king 
of Media, was crucified (évecravpdéon). A German 
physician, George Gottlieb Richter, has written a 
Dissertation on the Saviour’s Crucifixion, the sub- 
stance of which is quoted in Jahn's Arch. Bib., 
s. 261. The Penny Cycl., Art. Cross, mentions 
certain enthusiasts, called “ Convulsionaires,” who, 
in the time of Louis XV., underwent voluntary 
crucifixion, of which Dr. Merand was an eye- 
witness. It is not stated how long the two females, 
transfixed by nails five inches in length through 
both hands and feet, remained on the crosses, but 
only that ceremonies were performed during their 
crucifixion. One of the women, Felicité, stated 
that she had been crucified twenty-one times. 
In Mark xv. 44., Pilate is represented as sur- 
prised at the speedy termination of our Saviour’s 
life on the cross; and to ensure his death, a lance 
was thrust into his side. Crucified persons have 
been known to linger commonly till the third, and 
sometimes till the seventh day. It appears pro- 
bable that the constitutional strength of the 
Saviour was impaired. There was a long interval 
from his twelfth year, when he attended the San- 
hedrim, to the age of thirty, when his mission 
commenced, which is to us a blank, equally in 
canonical as in apocryphal history: this might 
have been a period of bodily suffering, and, know- 
ing the influence of mental sorrow on the strongest 
frame, we may reasonably infer such to have been 
the case. The prophecies are best reconciled on 
this hypothesis. The term broken-heart, as com- 
monly applied to death from grief and mental 
anxiety, is fairly allowable in a sermon, if not in a 
clinical lecture. See Penny Cyc., art. Heart, 
nervous diseases of (p. 86.), when under the in- 
fluence of depressing passions, Eschenbach Opus- 
cul. Medic. de Fervatore non apparenter, sed vere 
Mortuo, and Gruner, De Jesu Christi Morte vera, 
non synopticd. T. J. Buckron. 
Lichfield. 
In Dr. Macbride’s Lectures on the Diatessaron 
(edit. Oxon., 1835, p. 415.), this overwhelmingly 
interesting question is discussed. He quotes, from 
the Hvungelical Register of 1829, some observa~- 
tions of a physician, who writes under the signa- 
ture of Jason. The record concerning the blood 
and water, this writer considers as explaining (at 
least to a mere scientific age) that the real cause 
of the death of Jesus was rupture of the heart, 
occasioned by mental agony. Such rupture (it is 
stated) is usually attended by instant death, with- 
out previous exhaustion, and by the effusion into 
the pericardium of blood, which, in this particular 
case, though scarcely in any other, separates into 
its two constituent parts, so as to present the ap- 
pearance commonly termed blood and water. We 
are further informed in a note, that Bonet gives 
two examples of this (vol. i. p. 585. 887.). 
I purposely abstain from introducing any of the 
various comments, which might be easily gathered 
from other writers; as the simple matter of fact 
appears to me to be here asserted in a clear and 
tangible form. I have often greatly desired to 
know whether it could be corroborated by wider 
experience; and whether the prophecy, “Re- 
proach hath broken my heart” (Psalm Ixix. 20.), 
was thus fulfilled, as so many others were, in the 
momentous circumstances of the crucifixion, to 
the very letter. C. W. Bryeuam. 
Death resulting from a broken heart is not a 
“ vulgar error,” as K, had always imagined pre- 
viously to hearing the discourse he refers to. On 
the contrary, though not a very common cireum- 
stance, there are many cases on record in medical 
works. This affection, I believe, was first de- 
scribed by Harvey (De Circulatione Sanguinis 
Exercitatio iii.), but since his day several cases 
have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a 
few examples; amongst them, that of George II., 
who died suddenly of this disease in 1760; and 
what is very curious, Morgagni himself fell a 
victim to it afterwards. Dr. Elliotson has en- 
larged upon it in his “ Lumleyan Lectures on 
Diseases of the Heart,” delivered before the Royal 
College of Physicians in 1829; he, however, had 
only seen one instance. An admirable article on 
the subject will be found in the Cyclopedia of 
Practical Medicine, written by Dr. Townsend, who 
has drawn up a table of twenty-five cases, col- 
lected from various authors, Generally this acci- 
