128 APPLIED PHYSIOLOGY 



expedition, and, in short, he led a pleasant life in perfect 

 safety. Instead of a verbal answer, therefore, I carried 

 the young man himself to the King, that His Majesty 

 might with his own eyes behold the wonderful case : 

 that in a man alive and well he might, without detri- 

 ment to the individual, observe the movement of the 

 heart, and with his own hand even touch the ventricles 

 as they contracted. And his most excellent Majesty, 

 as well as myself, acknowledged that the heart was 

 without the sense of touch ; for the youth never knew 

 when we touched his heart except by the sight or sensa- 

 tion he had through the external integument.' 



Cases such as this belong, of course, to the curiosities 

 of medicine, but the insensitiveness of the heart to 

 punctured wounds is a well-established clinical fact. 



The nervous mechanism of the heart may be brought 

 into action in various ways. 



1. Psychical and emotional influences may so 



stimulate the cardio- inhibitory centre as to lead to 

 instant and fatal arrest of the heart's action. A number 

 of classical examples of such cases are mentioned by 

 Balfour.* 



' Sophocles, at the age of ninety, died suddenly of joy on being 

 crowned as the first tragic poet of the age. Philippides, the comic 

 writer, died a similar death. Chilon, of Lacedaemon, died in the 

 arms of his son, who had borne away the prize at the Olympic 

 games. The famous Fouguet died of joy on being set free by 

 Louis XIV. The niece of Leibritz died suddenly of joy at finding 

 a box containing ninety thousand ducats beneath the philosopher's 

 bed. ... It seems more natural that terror and grief should be 



* 'Diseases of the Heart,' third edition, 1898, p. 267. 



