er his faintness before he ran away with Madeline, and Cesar Birotteau
was an accepted lover when he swooned with happiness: but many an
officer has been cashiered, and many a suitor has been rejected,
because the centre of inhibition has got the upper hand of the centre of
stimulation.

"In the well-known cases of deadly antipathy which have been recorded,
the most frequent cause has been the disturbed and depressing influence
of the centre of inhibition. Fainting at the sight of blood is one of
the commonest examples of this influence. A single impression, in a very
early period of atmospheric existence,--perhaps, indirectly, before that
period, as was said to have happened in the case of James the First
of England,--may establish a communication between this centre and the
heart which will remain open ever afterwards. How does a footpath across
a field establish itself? Its curves are arbitrary, and what we call
accidental, but one after another follows it as if he were guided by a
chart on which it was laid down. So it is with this dangerous transit
between the centre of inhibition and the great organ of life. If once
the path is opened by the track of some profound impression, that same
impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old
footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse,
and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuate
itself in a timidity which shames the manhood of its subject.

"The case before us is an exceptional and most remarkable example of the
effect of inhibition on the heart.

"We will not say that we believe it to be unique in the history of
the human race; on the contrary, we do not doubt that there have been
similar cases, and that in some rare instances sudden death has been
the consequence of seizures like that of the subject of this Report. The
case most like it is that of Colone Townsend, which is too well known to
require any lengthened description in this paper. It is enough to recall
the main facts. He could by a voluntary effort suspend the action of
his heart for a considerable period, during which he lay like one dead,
pulseless, and without motion. After a time the circulation returned,
and he does not seem to have been the worse for his dangerous, or
seemingly dangerous, experiment. But in his case it was by an act of the
will that the heart's action was suspended. In the case before us it
is an involuntary i