My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest, But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast. Venus and Adonis.
I have tremor cordis on me,—my heart dances. Winter’s Tale, Act I., Sc. II.
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, Against the use of nature? Macbeth, Act I., Sc. III.
Death from “broken heart,” caused by excessive grief, finds mention in several plays.
Woe the while! O, cut my lace; lest my heart, cracking it, Break too! Winter’s Tale, Act III., Sc. II.
The grief that does not speak, Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break. Macbeth, Act IV., Sc. III.
Shall split thy very heart with sorrow. Richard III., Act I., Sc. III.
Dyer in his “Folk-Lore of Shakespeare” quotes the following from Mr. Timb’s “Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity,” (1861, p. 149.) “This affection (broken heart) was, it is believed, first described by Harvey; but since his day several cases have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples: among them, that of George II., who died in 1760; and, what is very curious, he fell a victim to the same malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan Lectures on Diseases of the Heart, in 1839, stated that he had only seen one instance; but in the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine’ Dr. Townsend gives a table of twenty-five cases, collected from various authors.”
A very good case of syncope is presented in Pericles. “The cases of apparent death, in which it is believed that premature interment sometimes takes place, are of this kind. Instances have occurred in which the pulse, respiration and consciousness have been absent for several days, and yet the patient has ultimately recovered. The system is in a sort of hybernation, in which vitality remains, though the vital functions are suspended. It is probable that, in such cases, a very careful auscultation might detect a slight sound in the heart.” (Dr. George B. Wood’s Practice. 1858. Vol. II., p. 211.)