s, as certainly, though not in so
short a time, as a blow or a wound in the vital organs of the human body.
The common nosologies contain no name for the disease, because, in truth,
it cannot properly be called a disease, any more than a stab with a sword
can deserve that name; and this, combined with the fact that it is only in
a very few instances that the _coup_ works by itself, without the aid of
some ailment generated by it, that young practitioners often homologate the
vulgar notions that prevail upon this important subject.

Among all the many causes of grief to which mankind are daily exposed, I
know not that there is one that strikes so deeply into the secret recesses
of the vital principle as the loss of a dearly-beloved wife, who has lived
with a man for a lengthened period, through early adversity and late
prosperity--borne him a family which have bound closer the tie that was
knitted by early affection, and who has left him to tread the last weary
stages of existence alone, and without that support which almost all men
derive from woman. The effects are often supposed to be proportioned to the
affection; yet I doubt if this solves the curious problem of the diversity
of consequences resulting from this great privation. There are many men of
strong powers of mind, who are so constituted that they _cannot_ but press
heavily on the support of another. They seem almost to live through the
thoughts and feelings of their helpmates; and the energies they take credit
for in the busy affairs of the world, have their source--unknown often to
themselves--in the bosom of wedded affection. It is in proportion to the
strength of the habit of this _leaning_, combined, doubtless, with the
coexistent affection, that the effects of the loss of a helpmate, in the
later period of life, work with such varied influence on the survivor. It
may also seem a curious fact, and I have no doubt of the truth of it, that
a man when advanced in years is much more apt to break suddenly down under
this visitation than a woman; while, again, the consequence would seem to
be reversed if the calamity has overtaken them in the more early stages of
the connection. These are grounds for speculation. At present I have only
to do with facts.

The individual whose case has suggested these observations, presented, when
I saw him first after the funeral of his wife, the symptom--present in all
cases of an utterly crushed spirit--of a wish to die. I was