e is one case on record
in which after a death from sudden joy the pericardium was found full
of blood. The Ephemerides, Marcellus Donatus, Martini, and Struthius
all mention death from joy.

Death from violent laughter has been recorded, but in this instance it
is very probable that death was not due to the emotion itself, but to
the extreme convulsion and exertion used in the laughter. The
Ephemerides mentions a death from laughter, and also describes the
death of a pregnant woman from violent mirth. Roy, Swinger, and
Camerarius have recorded instances of death from laughter. Strange as
it may seem, Saint-Foix says that the Moravian brothers, a sect of
Anabaptists having great horror of bloodshed, executed their condemned
brethren by tickling them to death.

Powerfully depressing emotions, which are called by Kant "asthenic,"
such as great and sudden sorrow, grief, or fright, have a pronounced
effect on the vital functions, at times even causing death. Throughout
literature and history we have examples of this anomaly. In
Shakespeare's "Pericles," Thaisa, the daughter to Simonides and wife of
Pericles, frightened when pregnant by a threatened shipwreck, dies in
premature childbirth.

In Scott's "Guy Mannering," Mrs. Bertram, on suddenly learning of the
death of her little boy, is thrown into premature labor, followed by
death. Various theories are advanced in explanation of this anomaly. A
very plausible one is, that the cardiac palsy is caused by energetic
and persistent excitement of the inhibitory cardiac nerves. Strand is
accredited with saying that agony of the mind produces rupture of the
heart. It is quite common to hear the expression, "Died of a broken
heart;" and, strange to say, in some cases postmortem examination has
proved the actual truth of the saying. Bartholinus, Fabricius Hildanus,
Pliny, Rhodius, Schenck, Marcellus Donatus, Riedlin, and Garengeot
speak of death from fright and fear, and the Ephemerides describes a
death the direct cause of which was intense shame. Deleau, a celebrated
doctor of Paris, while embracing his favorite daughter, who was in the
last throes of consumption, was so overcome by intense grief that he
fell over her corpse and died, and both were buried together.

The fear of child-birth has been frequently cited as a cause of death
McClintock quotes a case from Travers of a young lady, happily married;
who entertained a fear of death in child-birth; although she had been
s