Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/505

 2nd s. N 25., JUNE 21. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

497

venal, vi. 540., speaks of a large goose given as a sacred donation to propitiate the anger of Osiris ; and Ovid describes the bird as contributing its liver to a feast in honour of lo :

" Nee defensa juvant Capitolia, quo minus anser Det jecur in lances, Inachi lauta, tuas."

Fast., i. 453-4".

In conclusion, it may be remarked that a fabu- lous story, illustrative of the loquacious habits of the goose, is told by Plutarch in his Treatise on Garrulity, c. 14. When the wild! geese, he says, in going from Cilicia, cross the range of Taurus, which abounds in eagles, they take a large stone in their beaks, ia order to restrain their voice, and they thus escape over the mountain during the night without being observed. L.

BROKEN HEARTS: CRUCIFIXION. (2 na S. i. 432.)

Crucifixion is a very ancient mode of punish- ment ; it has long existed in China ; it was prac- tised by the Carthaginians, and is mentioned as in use when the Assyrian history begins (Diod. Sic. ii. c. i.), in the time of Ninus, by whom Pharnus, king of Media, was crucified (avecrravpudr)). A German physician, George Gottlieb Richter, has written a Dissertation on the Saviour's Crucifixion, the sub- stance of which is quoted in Jahu's Arch. Bib., s. 261. The Penny Cycl., Art. CROSS, mentions certain enthusiasts, called " Convulsionaires," who, in the time of Louis XV., underwent voluntary crucifixion, of which Dr. Merand was an eye- witness. It is not stated how long the two females, transfixed by nails five inches in length through both hands and feet, remained on the crosses, but only that ceremonies were performed during their crucifixion. One of the women, Felicite, stated that she had been crucified twenty-one times.

In Mark xv. 44., Pilate is represented as sur- prised at the speedy termination of our Saviour's life on the cross ; and to ensure his death, a lance was thrust into his side. Crucified persons have been known to linger commonly till the third, and sometimes till the seventh day. It appears pro- bable that the constitutional strength of the Saviour was impaired. There was a long interval from his twelfth year, when he attended the San- hedrim, to the age of thirty, when his mission commenced, which is to us a blank, equally in canonical as in apocryphal history : this might have been a period of bodily suffering, and, know- ing the influence of mental sorrow on the strongest frame, we may reasonably infer such to have been the case. The prophecies are best reconciled on this hypothesis. The term broken-heart, as com- monly applied to death from grief and mental anxiety, is fairly allowable in a sermon, if not in a

clinical lecture. See Penny Cyc., art. HEART, nervous diseases of (p. 86.), when under the in- fluence of depressing passions. Eschenbach Opus- cul. Medic, de Fervatore non apparenter, sed vere Mortuo, and Gruner, De Jesu Christi Morte vera, non synopticd, T. J. BUCK.TON.

Lichfield.

In Dr. Macbride's Lectures on the Diatessnron (edit. Oxon., 1835, p. 415.), this overwhelmingly interesting question is discussed. He quotes, from the Evangelical Register of 1829, some observa- tions of a physician, who writes under the signa- ture of Jason. The record concerning the blood and water, this writer considers as explaining (at least to a mere scientific age) that the real cause of the death of Jesus was rupture of the heart, occasioned by mental agony. Such rupture (it is stated) is usually attended by instant death, with- out previous exhaustion, and by the effusion into the pericardium of blood, which, in this particular case, though scarcely in any other, separates into its two constituent parts, so as to present the ap- pearance commonly termed blood and water. We are further informed in a note, that Bonet gives two examples of this (vol. i. p. 585. 887.).

I purposely abstain from introducing any of the various comments, which njight be easily gathered from other writers ; as the simple matter of fact appears to me to be here asserted in a clear and tangible form. I have often greatly desired to know whether it could be corroborated by wider experience ; and whether the prophecy, " Rer proach hath broken my heart" (Psalm Ixix. 20.), was thus fulfilled, as so many others were, in the momentous circumstances of the crucifixion, to the very letter. C. W. BINGHAM.

Death resulting from a broken heart is not a " vulgar ei'ror," as K. had always imagined pre- viously to hearing the discourse he refers to. On the contrary, though not a very common circum- stance, there are many cases on record in medical works. This affection, I believe, was first de- scribed by Harvey (De Circulatione Sanguinis Exercitatio iii.), but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples ; amongst them, that of George II., who died suddenly of this disease in 1760; and what is very curious, Morgagni himself fell a victim to it afterwards. Dr. Elliotson has en- lai-ged upon it in his " Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the Heart," delivered before the Royal College of Physicians in 1829 ; he, however, had only seen one instance. An admirable article on the subject will be found in the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine, written by Dr. Townsend, who has drawn up a table of twenty-five cases, col- lected from various authors. Generally this acci-