Head. According to the old writers on physiognomy, a round head denoted foolishness, a notion to which reference is made in “Antony and Cleopatra” (iii. 3), in the following dialogue, where Cleopatra, inquiring about Octavia, says to the Messenger:
“Bear’st thou her face in mind? Is’t long, or round?
Messenger. Round, even to faultiness.
Cleopatra. For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.”
In Hill’s “Pleasant History,” etc. (1613), we read: “The head very round, to be forgetful and foolish.” Again: “The head long, to be prudent and wary.”
Heart. The term “broken heart,” as commonly applied to death from excessive grief, is not a vulgar error, but may arise from violent muscular exertion or strong mental emotions. In “Macbeth” (iv. 3), Malcolm says:
“The grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.”
We may compare, too, Queen Margaret’s words to Buckingham, in “Richard III.” (i. 3), where she prophesies how Gloster
“Shall split thy very heart with sorrow.”
Mr. Timbs, in his “Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity” (1861, p. 149), has given the following note on the subject: “This affection 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 suddenly of this disease in 1760; and, what is very curious, Morgagni himself 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.”