Upon investigation most of these cases which have been seen by a physician previous to death have been recognized as subject to a disease likely to terminate in sudden death; and practically all in which a post-mortem examination has been made have shown a definite physical cause of death. The fright, anger, or other mental impression, was merely the last straw, which, throwing a sudden strain upon already weakened vessels, heart, or brain, precipitated the final catastrophe. In some cases, even the sense of fright and the premonition of approaching death were merely the first symptoms of impending dissolution. The stories of death from purely imaginative impressions, such as the victims being told that they were seriously ill, that they would die on or about such and such a date, fall into two great classes. The first of these--involving death at a definite date, after it had been prophesied either by the victim or some physician or priest--may be dismissed in a few words, as they lead at once into the realm of prophecy, witchcraft, and voodoo. Most of them are little better than after-echoes of the ethnic stories of the "evil eye," and of bewitched individuals fading away and dying after their wax image has been stuck full of pins or otherwise mutilated. There have occurred instances of individuals dying upon the date at which some one in whose powers of prophecy they had confidence declared they would, or even upon a date on which they had settled in their own minds, and announced accordingly; but these are so rare as readily to come within the percentage probabilities of pure coincidence. Most such prophecies fail utterly; but the failures are not recorded, only the chance successes. The second group of these alleged instances of death by mental impression is in most singular case. Practically every one with whom you converse, every popular volume of curiosities which you pick up, is ready to relate one or more instances of such an event. But the more you listen to these relations, the more familiar do they become, until finally they practically simmer down to two stock legends, which we have all heard related in some form. First, and most famous, is the story of a vigorous, healthy man accosted by a series of doctors at successive corners of the street down which he is walking, with the greeting:-- "Why, my dear Mr. So-and-So, what is the matter? How ill you look!" He becomes alarmed, takes to his bed, falls into a state of collapse, and dies within a few days.