KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



95 



In the new-born infant it is from one hun- 

 dred and thirty to one hundred and forty in 

 a minute, but decreases in frequency as life 

 advances ; so that in a middle-aged adult in 

 perfect health, it is from seventy-two to 

 seventy-five. In the decline of life, it is 

 slower than this, and falls to about sixty. 

 It is obvious that if Ave could suppose a prac- 

 titioner ignorant of these plain facts, he 

 would be liable to make the most absurd 

 blunders, and might imagine a boy of ten 

 to be laboring under some grievous disease, 

 because his pulse had not the slow sobriety 

 of his grandfather's. 



A more likely error is, to mistake the in- 

 fluence of some temporary cause for the 

 effect of a more permanent disease ; thus, in 

 a nervous patient, the doctor's knock at the 

 door will quicken the pulse from fifteen to 

 twenty beats in a minute. This fact did not 

 escape the notice of the sagacious Celsus, 

 who says, " The pulse will be altered by the 

 approach of the physician, and the anxiety 

 of the patient doubting what his opinion of 

 the case may be. For this reason, a skilful 

 physician will not feel the pulse as soon as 

 he comes ; but he will first sit down with a 

 cheerful countenance, and ask how the 

 patient is, soothing him if he be timorous, 

 by the kindness of his conversation, and 

 afterwards applying his hand to the patient's 

 arm." 



Granted, however, that these sources of 

 error are avoided, the quickness of the pulse 

 will afford most important information. If 

 in a person, for example, whose pulse is 

 usually seventy-two, the beats rise in num- 

 ber to ninety-eight, some alarming disease is 

 certainly present; or, on the otner hand, 

 should it have permanently sunk to fifty, it 

 is but too probable that the source of the 

 circulation, the heart itself, is laboring under 

 incurable disease, or that some other of the 

 great springs of life is irremediably injured. 



Supposing, again, the pulse to be seventy- 

 two, each beat ought to occur at an interval 

 of five-sixths of a second; but shoujd the 

 deviation from this rhythm be perceived, the 

 pulse is then said to be irregular. The 

 varieties of irregularity are infinite ; but 

 there is one so remarkable as to deserve par- 

 ticular mention. It will happen sometimes 

 that the interval between two beats are 

 much longer than was expected, so that it 

 would seem that onebeat had been omitted. 

 In this case the pulse is said to be an inter- 

 mittent one. 



"When the action of the heart is irregular, 

 the beat of the pulse is so likewise ; but it 

 will occasionally happen, that the latter 

 irregularity takes place without the former 

 one, from some morbid cause existing be- 

 tween the heart and the wrist. It is hardly 

 necessary to observe that, in all doubtful 



cases, the physician examines the pulsation 

 of the heart as well as that of the wrist, 

 just as the diligent fstudent, discontented 

 with the narrow limits of provincial informa- 

 tion, repairs to the metropolis to pursue his 

 scientific inquiries. 



The strength or feebleness of the pulse 

 its hardness or softness, and innumerable 

 other qualities might be discussed here ; but 

 from the great difficulty attending any ex- 

 amination of these points, and the technical 

 niceties involved in anything more than a 

 bare mention of them, we omit them. There 

 is one point, however, which it would be 

 unpardonable to pass over in silence — some- 

 times no pulsation can be felt at the usual 

 part of the Avrist. This may proceed from 

 so great a languor of the circulation, that it 

 is imperceptible at the extremities ; or from 

 the radial artery (the one usually felt) being 

 ossified ; or from an irregular distribution of 

 the arteries of the fore-arm. 



EFFECTS PRODUCED BY FRIGHT. 



The changes which are wrought by disturb- 

 ances of the heart upon the cutaneous capillaries, 

 are illustrated in a remarkable manner in some 

 persons, the hair of whose head has suddenly 

 become white from a disturbance in the heart, 

 caused by violent mental excitement. A lady 

 who was deeply grieved on receiving the intel- 

 ligence of a great change in her worldly con- 

 dition, and who had a very remarkable quantity 

 of dark hair, found on the following morning the 

 whole of the hair had become of a silver white. 

 Some striking instances of this kind are narrated 

 by historians. u I was struck," says Madame 

 Campan, "with the astonishing change mis- 

 fortune had wrought upon Marie Antoinette's 

 features; her whole head of hair had turned 

 almost white during her transit from Varennes 

 to Paris." The Duchess of Luxembourg, when 

 caught making her escape during the terrors of 

 the French Revolution, was put in prison ; the 

 next morning it was observed that her hair had 

 become white. A Spanish officer, distinguished 

 for his bravery, was in the Duke of Alva's camp, 

 and an experiment was made by one of the au- 

 thorities to test his courage. At midnight the 

 Provost Marshal, accompanied by his guard and 

 a confessor, awoke him from his sleep, informing 

 him that, by order of the Viceroy, he was to be 

 immediately executed, and had only a quarter 

 of an hour left to make his peace with Heaven. 

 After he had confessed, he said that he was pre- 

 pared for death, but declared his innocence. The 

 Provost Marshal at this moment burst into a fit 

 of laughter, and told him that they merely wanted 

 to try his courage. Placing his hand upon his 

 heart, and with a ghastly paleness, he ordered 

 the provost out of his tent, observing that he had 

 "done him an evil office;" and the next 

 morning, to the wonder of the whole army, the 

 hair of his head, from having been of a deep black 

 color, had become perfectly white. 



