Physicians who have described the dreadful spectacle of the lazarets during epidemics, mention the great number who die victims to fear, in many of whom the symptoms of the plague had not even appeared. Some have died suddenly from the fear of being taken to the lazaret, others have committed suicide, as we are told the cowardly have been seen to do in battle, who, terrified at the sight of death, or weary of suffering, have placed their chin on the muzzle of their gun and blown out their brains. What horror we should feel could we read year by year the story of those who have succumbed to nostalgia, grief, humiliation; in misery, winter-cold, or want of food! Of men who have died hopelessly in the snow or lost in the sands of the desert, of others who have been shipwrecked and thrown upon the rocks, and whom a little courage might have saved; of men who have languished in gloomy prisons, in lonely monasteries or in exile, and who have died rather of mental than of bodily suffering. III Maladies which have their origin in fear must be distinguished from those morbid conditions which are suddenly aggravated by the effect of a strong emotion. There are many who, when they receive a fright, become for the first time aware of some infirmity, which then increases so rapidly as to endanger their life. Lamarre tells the following fact.[35] A lady, seventy-five years of age, had suffered for about ten years from defective action of the valves of the heart without this disease having hindered her housewifely activity. Dr. Lamarre, who was her physician from 1865 to 1870, was called a few times to her. The hypertrophy of the heart sufficiently counterbalanced the defect of the valves, and the pulse was regular. When the Franco-Prussian war broke out in 1870, her sons agreed to keep her in ignorance of it, lest she should be afraid, she having already witnessed the plundering of her father’s house by the Prussians in 1815. They succeeded easily in keeping all news of national disasters from her, for they lived isolated in the country, and their mother read no newspapers. [35] Ed. Lamarre: _Contribution à l’étude du rôle du système nerveux dans les affections du cœur_. Paris, 1882, p. 99. On September 4, 1870, she suddenly heard of the defeats of the French, and of the march of the German army upon Paris. It was such a terrible shock to her that her face became livid, and she scarcely had the strength to cry, as she pressed her hand to her heart, 'I am suffocating--I am suffocating!’ Three-quarters of an hour later she died in her sons’ arms. The movements which she made with hands and face till the last moment, and the great irregularity of the pulse, caused Dr. Lamarre to abandon the idea of apoplexy, and accept as the cause of decease a nervous perturbation of the heart brought on by violent mental agitation.