Mysteries of life, death, and futurity : illustrated from the best and latest authorities / by Horace Welby [pseud., i.e. John Timbs].

  • Timbs, John, 1801-1875.
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mysteries of life, death, and futurity : illustrated from the best and latest authorities / by Horace Welby [pseud., i.e. John Timbs]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    again as severe as it was before you left, I do not know how I can bear it.'5 He again questioned Dr. Bucknill as to the danger of his complaint—he was told of his danger—inquired as to the remedies, and on being told, answered, Ah! very well. The physician, who was dropping the laudanum into a glass, turned round, and saw him quite calm, but his eyes were shut. In another minute he heard a rattle in his throat, and a convulsive struggle,—flew to the bed, and called to one of the servants to fetch Mrs. Arnold. The family soon arrived; but the sobs and cries of his children were unable to affect him— the eyes were fixed, the countenance was unmoved: there was a heaving of the chest, deep gasps escaped at prolonged intervals, and just as the usual medical attendant arrived, and as the old school-house servant, in an agony of grief, rushed with the others into the room in the hope of seeing his master once more, he breathed his last. This occurred shortly before eight in the morning. What that Sunday was in Rugby, it is hard fully to represent,—the incredulity,—the bewilderment,—the agitating inquiries for every detail,—the blank, more awful than sorrow, that prevailed through the vacant services of the long and dreary day,—the feeling as if the very place had passed away with him who had so emphatically been in every sense its head,—the sympathy which hardly dared to contemplate, and which yet could not but fix the thoughts and looks of all on the desolate house, where the fatherless family were gathered round the chamber of death.—Arnold's Life, vol. ii. Mr. Harrison, in whose work are quoted these details, adds: in Dr. Arnold's case, the heart was found soft and thin, but without any valvular disease. Mr. Harrison then relates a case of a gentleman, about fifty-five years of age, in impaired health, and who, from having been thin and muscular, was slightly tend- ing to fat and corpulency. One day, at dinner, he felt an unusual pain in the region of his heart: he retired, warm applications were made to the chest, and the pain soon ceased altogether. He then begged to be left alone: in less than an hour, his wife found him lying upon the sofa, just in the position she had left him : she believed him asleep, but found him dead. The exami- nation of his body disclosed nothing that could account for his death, but a thin fat heart; fat was deposited on it at the expense of its muscular substance. BROKEN HEARTS. The term broken heart, as commonly applied to death from grief, is not a vulgar error, as generally supposed. On the con- trary, though not a very common circumstance, there are many- cases on record in medical works. This affection, it is believed,