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 
