Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-10-03
rRIGHTENEDTo DEATH.
The Shock Which Ends Life With q
Broken Heart.

From the British Medical journal
The serious effects Of shock to the nervous
system, especially v fright, are constantly wit
messed, the results being most commonly syn
cope and commissions. Death itself Is, fortu-
nately, comparatively rare. II is reported in
the newspapers to have occurred at Brockley on
March 81, in the case of q girl aged eighteen,
who was frightened to death py man dressed
as ghost, near the Deptford cemetery. The
pathology of emotional DEATHS of great interest,
and varies In different cases. I'm some instances
fatal issue results from sanguineous apoplexy;
shock to the heart. Examples of the former are
recorded by DR.. d. Hack luke, in his "Infiu-
ence OF the Mind Upon the Body Thus, a
woman at Bradford received a fright from a
man throwing stone against her window. He
had previously threatened her. She soon after
wards complained of 1umbness, and rapidly be-
came insensible. There was right hemiplegia
She died in seven hours; and on post norton
examination, a "lot of blood was found in the
left lateral ventrcle. The cerebral vessels ap.
peared to be healthy. In the well-known ex-
ample of death from the heart which occurred
in John Hunters own case, we have an illustra-
tion of the cardiac class. The organ was extern
sively diseased, and the left ventricle was
strongly contracted. Other instances OF death
from emotion, in which the stress had evidently
fallen upon the heart, and not upon the BRAIN are
recorded in the collection of cases of death from
powerful emotion to which we have referred
In some cases. however, there was no evil
dence of dsease of the heart or OF any organ of
the body, as might. indeed, be expected, For
instance, q man ia reported to have died at
Twickenham after witnessing the death Of a
neighbor. He made the remark: II have
never seen any one dead before, and hope 1
never shall again." There was q post-mortem
examination made by DR.. Ward, but nothing
was found to account for death; both VEN
tricles Of the heart contained only little
fluid blood. the organ itself being normal in
size and healthy. There is no reason to
may arise simply from the action of the heart
being inhibited, whether by direct excita-
ton Of the vagus, as maintained by Brown
Sequard. or of the accelerators Of the
heart in the first instance followed
by exhaustion. and the unantagonized play of
the former. Any way, if the heart. as in
Hunters case, be strongly contracted on its
contents, and the blood expelled, one efficient
cause of syncope with fatal results is present
Probably this was the pathological explanation
of this unfortunate girls DEATH from the silly
practical joke played upon her. She arrived
home after her fright in the road by the Dept
ford cemetery, at Brockley, looking very Ill
and excited. She is said to have taken off her
waterproof, drawn chair to the table to take
supper, then fallen forward with her head on
the table, and died after short struggle Mr..
Hollis, the medical man who was called in,
made post-mortem examination, and re-
ported that all the organs were healthy, but
that the state Of the heart, combined with the
fright, would account for death.