the centre of stimulation.

"In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been recorded,
the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and depressing influence
of the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one of
the commonest examples of this influence. A single impression, in a very
early period of atmospheric existence,--perhaps, indirectly, before that
period, as was said to have happened in the case of James the First of
England,--may establish a communication between this centre and the heart
which will remain open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across a
field establish itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call
accidental, but one after another follows it as if he were guided by a
chart on which it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit
between the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once
the path is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same
impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old
footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse,
and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuate
itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its subject.

"The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of the
effect of inhibition on the heart.

"We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of the
human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been similar
cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been the
consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. The case
most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well known to
require any lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to recall
the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort suspend the action of his
heart for a considerable period, during which he lay like one dead,
pulseless, and without motion. After a time the circulation returned,
and he does not seem to have been the worse for his dangerous, or
seemingly dangerous, experiment. But in his case it was by an act of the
will that the heart's action was suspended. In the case before us it is
an involuntary impulse transmitted from the brain to the inhibiting
centre, which arrests the cardiac movements.

"What is like to be the further history of the case?

"The subject of this anomalous affliction is now more than twenty years
old. The chain of nervous actions h