In cases of sudden death from disease of the heart, there is neither occasion nor time for medical treatment of any sort. Death is instantaneous and without warning. Where death beginning at the heart takes place by way of syncope, fresh air and stimulants cautiously given are the best resources. Wine or brandy, with egg or other light nutriment, are appropriate. When death is taking place in the slower way of exhaustion, a like treatment is to be pursued. In the earlier stage, small quantities of soup, or beef tea may be given, but when death is near they are best omitted. It is in these cases that madeira and tokay answer so well. In all cases of dying by failure of the heart’s action, the posture of the patient should be carefully adjusted--the head should be low rather than raised, and it and the shoulders supported on firm pillows. Any approach to the erect or sitting posture is as a rule to be avoided. Its tendency is to occasion fainting and death. In death from the lungs or by asphyxia the struggle is often protracted, and accompanied by all those marks of suffering which the imagination associates with the closing scene of life. Doubtless in the earlier stages of it, there is real suffering, but happily this is rarely of long duration, for the circulation of venous blood ensues, and deadens sensibility and pain. The respirations in this mode of death become laborious and heaving, the expression of countenance distressed and anxious. But soon the face becomes tumid and dusky, the lips livid, and with the circulation of undecarbonized blood, which these symptoms imply, the anxious expression of face subsides, and there ensues a slowly increasing benumbing of sensation, and a corresponding diminution of suffering. The breathing then becomes irregular and laborious, and the heavings of the chest convulsive; but these movements are automatic, and independent alike of sensation and of the will. They soon pass into coma, stertor, rattle in the windpipe, and death. Stertorous breathing is in great measure due to affection of the brain or medulla, either primary or secondary. The latter is the condition we are here contemplating. Stertor seems to be due to a falling back of the base of the tongue into the pharynx, and to the obstruction to respiration thence induced; and is increased by the prone position on the back, into which such patients naturally fall. It may be relieved by placing the person on one side, and supporting him in that position by well-arranged pillows. The tongue then drops to the side of the pharynx and mouth, and leaves room for the ingoing air. Dr. Bowles, of Folkestone, to whom we owe the knowledge of these facts, warns us, that care should be taken to keep the neck rather straight, as, if the chin be brought too near the sternum, the thyroid cartilage presses upwards and backwards, and again pushes the base of the tongue, toward the back of the pharynx.