Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/374

360 bleed, and soon after a hæmorrhage broke out from every part of the integuments, and from the nose. A case is also related of a widow, forty-five years of age, who had lost her only son. She one day fancied that she beheld his apparition beseeching her to relieve him from purgatory by her prayers, and by fasting every Friday. The following Friday, in the month of August, a perspiration tinged with blood broke out. For five successive Fridays the same phenomenon appeared. The blood escaped from the upper part of the body, the back of the head, the temples, the eyes, the nose, the breast, and the tips of the fingers. The disorder disappeared spontaneously on Friday, the 8th of March in the following year.

This affection was evidently occasioned by superstitious fears; and this appears more probable from the periodicity of the attacks. The first invasion of the disease might have been purely accidental; but the regularity of its subsequent appearance on the stated day of the vision may be attributed to the influence of apprehension. Bartholinus mentions cases of bloody sweat taking place during vehement terror, and the agonies of torture.

The case of Catherine Merlin, of Chamburg, is well authenticated, and worthy of being recorded. She received a kick from a bullock over the pit of the stomach, that was followed by vomiting of blood; this discharge having been suddenly stopped by her medical attendants, the blood made its way through the pores of various parts of her body, every limb being affected in turn. The sanguineous discharge was preceded by a pricking and itching sensation. The discharge usually occurred twice in the twenty-four hours; and on pressing the skin the flow of blood could be accelerated and increased. Dr. Fournier relates the case of a magistrate who was attacked with bloody sweat after any excitement, whether of a painful or a pleasurable nature.

In his "Commentaries on the Four Gospels," Maldonato refers to a robust and healthy man at Paris, who, on hearing sentence of death passed on him, was covered with a bloody sweat. Zacchias mentions a young man who was similarly affected on being condemned to the flames. The following case is quoted, in the "Medico-Chirurgical Review," from the French "Transactions Médicale" for November, 1830: A young woman, aged twenty-one years, of indolent habits and obstinate temper, had been much irritated by some reflections made by her parents on account of her abjuring the Protestant religion. She left the parental roof, and, after wandering about for some time, took up her residence in a hospital. She was then suffering from violent attacks of hysteria, attended with general convulsions. After paroxysms of hysteria, which sometimes lasted twenty-four or thirty-six hours, this young woman fell into a kind of ecstasy, in which she lay with her eyes fixed, sensibility and motion suspended. Sometimes she muttered a prayer, but the most remarkable phenomenon was an exudation of