Certain diseases practically always end in sudden death and must be taken special care of by the priest for this reason. Aneurism, for instance, is one of these. An aneurism is a widening or dilatation at some point of an artery. The most important aneurisms occur in the arch of the aorta, that is, in the large curved artery which comes directly from the heart itself and of which all the other arteries are branches. Aneurisms develop, according to the expression of a distinguished American physician, in the special votaries of three heathen divinities, Vulcan, Bacchus, and Venus,--that is, in those who have worked too hard, in those who have drunk too hard, and in those who have devoted themselves too much to the pleasures of the flesh. The most important factor of all is, however, the contraction of venereal disease, especially of that form known as syphilis. The termination of aneurism cases is usually by rupture with profuse hemorrhage. Death takes place in a moment or two. Aneurisms often cause intense pain, which is sometimes thought to be rheumatic in origin. If the aneurism, in its enlargement, meets with bony structure, it produces absorption of the bone by pressure upon it and so finds a way even through the bone to the overlying skin. This process is always intensely painful, and shortly after the aneurism appears at the surface the pressure upon the skin causes it to become thin and the aneurism may rupture externally. Addison's Disease always ends suddenly. This is a rare affection, described by Addison, an English physician, some fifty years ago, which develops in individuals whose suprarenal capsules are degenerated. The suprarenal capsules are little bodies of half-moon shape which lie above the kidneys. {156} Their degeneration produces a great lowering of blood pressure. The patient becomes intensely weak, muscular movement becomes impossible, intellectual processes cause great fatigue, and finally blood pressure becomes so low that fatal collapse ensues from lack of blood in the brain. The external symptoms of these cases is a pigmentation, that is, a very dark discolouration of the skin, which develops rather early in the disease. The tongue especially becomes a very dark brown. Areas of pigmentation also occur where the skin is irritated,--at the wrists from the irritation of the coat sleeves, at the edge of the hair from the irritation of the hat. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, in his _Autobiography of a Quack_, has described one of these cases very strikingly. The hero of the tale is found dead one morning by the nurse in the hospital, after he has been feeling quite as well as usual for some time.