Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/203

1868.] gastric juice. A small opening is made in the stomach of a dog, and a silver tube fastened therein. The operation is not a serious or painful one, and the animal continues in good condition with the fistula permanently established in his stomach. If now the cork which closes the tube be removed while the stomach is empty no flow takes place, but if a piece of meat be held up before the dog's eyes the gastric juice is at once secreted in large quantity and soon begins to pass through the opening. This secretion may be at once arrested by speaking to the dog in a sharp tone, or making any other manifestation of displeasure. Such an experiment shows the great value of observations made upon living animals, and it is difficult to overestimate its importance in a physiological or pathological point of view. We have the influence of the emotions exercised in two very different ways, first, in causing the secretion of the gastric juice, and then in arresting its flow. These actions are equally well produced in the human system, from like causes, and hence various forms of dyspepsia or indigestion follow sudden emotions, or are direct consequences of long continued mental exertion or anxiety. Americans are preeminently an emotional people, and we work our brains and nerves as no other nation has worked them since the world began. It is therefore no strange thing that insanity and nervous affections are more common in the United States than in any other country, and that emotional diseases—and chief among them dyspepsia—are so wide spread that the individual who is not affected with some one of them is looked upon as a marvel in anthropology.

And then as regards the heart, the effect of emotion is even more distinctly shown. Death from a broken heart is no sentimental idea, but a terrible reality. During the French Revolution it was distinctly noticed that diseases of the heart became exceedingly frequent; and an eminent medical practioner of this country, who has acquired a high and well-deserved reputation for his skill in detecting and managing cardiac affections, has found such diseases notably increased in number by our own national troubles. A sudden emotion may indeed stop the pulsations of the heart as instantaneously as a sword thrust or a bullet; and for such a result it is not even necessary that the emotion should be of a distressing character. It is related that after Hannibal's victory over the Romans at Cannæ, the Roman mothers, overcome with joy at seeing their sons return alive when they had thought them killed, dropped down dead upon the spot. The conflict between contending emotions, such as pride and shame, has often produced sudden death from paralysis of the heart

Long continued anxiety produces a weak and slow action of the heart, besides interfering with the healthy working of other organs. A recent medical writer upon emotional diseases, relates the case of a gentleman who, disappointed in business, was subjected to continual annoyance from superiors, who contrived to keep him in a subordinate position. At length he became a prey to low spirits, and mourned secretly over his trials, and at the same time he lost his health from bronchitis, dyspepsia, pains in the back, and swimming in the head. The most prominent symptom, however, consisted of an exceedingly weak and slow pulse, with a tendency to intermit and to vary on the slightest occasion. When the patient was sitting, its average was sixty, but on rising to his feet it immediately rose to one hundred and continued so as long as he was in the erect posture. As soon, however, as his trials passed away, the organ became restored to its normal condition. A case is now under the observation of the writer, in