And Byron well portrays vertigo.
Her cheek turn’d ashes, ears rung, brain whirl’d round, As if she had received a sudden blow, And the hearts dew of pain sprang fast and chilly O’er her fair front, like morning’s on a lily. Although she was not of the fainting sort, Baba thought she would faint, but there he err’d— It was but a convulsion, which, though short, Can never be described; we all have heard, And some of us have felt thus “all amort,” When things beyond the common have occurr’d. Don Juan, Canto VI., Verse CV.
That old vertigo in his head Will never leave him, till he’s dead. Swift.
Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right, It is the slaver kills and not the bite. Pope.
Loss!—such a palaver, I’d inoculate sooner my wife with the slaver Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen two hours * * * * * * Byron—The Blues.
The sot, Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors: What though on Lethe’s stream he seem to float, He can not sink his tremors or his terrors; The ruby glass that shakes within his hand, Leaves a sad sediment of Time’s worst sand. Byron—Don Juan, Canto XV., Verse IV.
Taking up diseases of the circulatory system next we find Shakespeare displaying considerable knowledge in regard to them. The extended impulse of the heart under intense excitement is nicely shown in the Rape of Lucrece.
His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,— Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall! May feel her heart,—(poor citizen!) distress’d. Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall, Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.
Again,
I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.