MORBID CONDITIONS PRODUCED BY MENTAL CAUSES. 255 



unsuccessful jump at their cage. In sucli cases, the sudden- 

 ness of the shock is as powerful in its physical influence as its 

 intensity. And further, direct bodily may be combined with 

 or substituted so far for mental shock, in the case, for 

 instance, of a clumsy servant knocking over or down a cage 

 with its timid occupant. 



It is no part of my present duty or object to discuss the 

 modus operandi whereby so striking a physical result as in- 

 stantaneous death is sometimes produced by purely emotional 

 causes. What I have to do is simply to point out the indis- 

 putable and direct connection between the mental or moral 

 state and the bodily effect. 



Emulation is sometimes carried to such excess even by 

 an animal itself, at its own instance and for its own pleasure, 

 for instance by the dog or horse in the race or chase, that 

 death suddenly puts a veto on the sport: the overstrained 

 animal drops down dead, even before it has reached its 

 goal. 



' A first-rate bird will sometimes sing till he drops down 

 almost dead .... or quite dead, from rupturing a vessel in 

 the lungs' that is, from pulmonary haemorrhage. This 

 excessive rivalry in song, this singing literally to death, is 

 confined to the males (Darwin). 



We read also of animals fighting, racing, running to the 

 death, of fatal effects from excessive persistence or perse- 

 verance in hunting, racing, coursing. In such cases there 

 is not simply intense rivalry at work, not only inordinate 

 pleasure in tho sport or work, extreme eagerness to gain a 

 coveted end; but there is also undue and dangerous physical 

 strain on the nervous and circulatory systems, more especially 

 on the heart. Death, therefore, may result from general 

 exhaustion, or special (nervous) exhaustion, or from failure 

 of the heart's action, preceded, or not, by serious palpitation. 



Similar results, including sudden death, occur in animals 

 hunted or persecuted to the death by man, in which case we 

 have at work the additional potent emotion of fear. 



The shock of fright is sometimes so sudden and severe as 

 to cause instant death (Darwin). 



Death, however, is much more frequently indirect and 



