CHAPTEE XIX. 



MORBID BODILY CONDITIONS PRODUCED BY MKNTAL CAUSES. 



THROUGHOUT this work many illustrations are given of the 

 influence of purely mental states, of feeling or emotion, in 

 giving rise to bodily disturbance of every degree, culminating 

 in death itself. But the physical conditions so resulting 

 are of sufficient practical interest, and sufficiently numerous 

 and varied, to demand special or separate consideration. 



The most serious, and perhaps also the most common of 

 these physical results of intense emotion, is death, either 

 sudden or gradual. The former sudden death occurs in a 

 very limited number of cases. There are occasional instances 

 of literal heart-break, of syncope usually, but also of rupture 

 of the heart-tissues or walls, under sudden and intense ex- 

 citement or depression, passion or emotion, even when 

 pleasurable : under joy, anger, surprise, fear or grief, for 

 instance, in the dog (Pierquin). That intensity of joy which 

 is known as transport or ecstasy may be fatal by syncope. 

 A single paroxysm of rage may be fatal by the rapid and 

 utter nervous exhaustion it produces. Dr. Adams gives an 

 instance of fear causing instant death in a moose by heart- 

 disease, what he calls 'paralysis of the heart,' but which 

 was more probably mere syncope, in either case a sudden 

 stoppage of the heart's action. He mentions also a squirrel, 

 'frightened out of its wits,' that died a captive, obviously 

 also from sudden and intense fear, a phenomenon that is 

 common among small birds captured by man. 



Everybody who has had any experience of bird-pets must 

 have met with instances of sudden death from fright in the 

 canary or parrot, produced by the sight of a cat, or by its 



