Admiral Beaufort, “while life was returning, were the very reverse in every point of those which have been described above. One single but confused idea--a miserable belief that I was drowning dwelt upon my mind, instead of the multitude of clear and definite ideas which had recently rushed through it--a helpless anxiety--a kind of continuous nightmare seemed to press heavily on every sense, and to prevent the formation of any one distinct thought, and it was with difficulty that I became convinced that I was really alive. Again, _instead of being absolutely free from all bodily pain, as in my drowning state_, I was now tortured by pain all over me.” I have given this case at some length, because it seems to throw a new light on the act of dying, and because analogous instances are probably not uncommon. Admiral Beaufort tells us that he had heard from two or three persons, who had recovered from a similar state, a detail of their feelings, which resembled his own as nearly as was consistent with their different constitutions and dispositions. Sir Benjamin Brodie mentions an instance in a sailor;[14] De Quincey records a like instance in a female, a near relative of his own;[15] and I have myself heard of two similar cases, but the details are not sufficiently precise to justify their narration here. In fact, all the best and all the most direct evidence that the subject admits of, goes to show, that as a rule, the immediate act of dying is in no sense a process of severe bodily suffering--or, indeed, for the most part even of pain. The common belief that the act of dying is one of severe bodily suffering is due probably in part to theoretical views of the nature of the event itself;[16] but, principally, to the occurrence of conditions, physiological or pathological, which precede or accompany that act, and the nature and import of which are misinterpreted. Doubtless also, it is due in no small degree to confounding the actual stage of dying, with those urgent symptoms of disease that precede and lead up to it, and which are often as severe or more so in those who are to recover, as in those who are to die. As a rule, to which there are doubtless exceptions, the urgent symptoms of disease subside, when the act of dying really begins. “A pause in nature, as it were, seems to take place, the disease has done its worst, all strong action has ceased, the frame is fatigued by its efforts to sustain itself, and a general tranquillity pervades the whole system.”[17]