308 NATURE AND LIFE. 



Sudden death, unconnected with outward and acci- 

 dental causes, may occur in various ways. Very violent 

 impressions on the feelings sometimes abruptly check the 

 movements of the heart, and produce a mortal swoon. In- 

 stances are well known of many persons dying of joy Leo 

 X. is one and of persons who succumbed to fear. In 

 foudroyant apoplexy, if real death is not instantaneous, 

 there is at least the sudden occurrence of the phenomena 

 of death. The sufferer is plunged in profound sleep, called 

 by physicians coma, from which wakening is impossible ; 

 his breathing is difficult, his eyes set, his mouth twisted 

 and distorted. The pulsations of the heart cease little by 

 little, and soon life utterly vanishes. The breaking of an 

 aneurism very often occasions sudden death. Not less 

 often the cause of death is found in what is called embo- 

 lism, that is, a check to the circulation by a clot of blood 

 suddenly plugging up some important vessel. And there 

 are also cases of sudden death still unaccounted for, in the 

 sense that subsequent dissection discovers nothing that 

 could explain the stoppage in the operations of life. 



Death is usually preceded by a group of phenomena 

 that has received the name of the death-agony. In most 

 cases of disease the beginning of this concluding period 

 is marked by a sudden improvement of the functions. It 

 is the last gleam springing from the dying flame ; but soon 

 the eyes become fixed and insensible to the action of light, 

 the nose grows pointed and cold, the mouth, wide open, 

 seems to call for the air that fails it, the cavity within it 

 is parched, and the lips, as if withered, cling to the curves 

 of the teeth. The last movements of respiration are spas- 

 modic, and a wheezing, and sometimes a marked gurgling 

 sound, may be heard at some distance, caused by obstruc- 

 tion of the bronchial tubes with a quantity of mucus. The 

 breath is cold, the temperature of the skin lowered. If 

 the heart is examined, we note the weakening of its sounds 



