‘DIED OF A BROKEN HEART'.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XXIV, 10 December 1898, Page 767

‘DIED OF A BROKEN HEART'.

When you hear of anyone dying of a broken heart, does it ever occur to you to ask yourself whether you may take the news literally or not? ‘lt is a popular belief that ‘death from a broken heart* is simply a manner of expressing the fact that extreme grief has worn out the system and absorbed the vital energies to such an extent as to end one’s life. But this is quite incorrect /says a writer on medical matters), for, us a matter of fact, the sudden disclosure of bhd news will frequently break the heart of the recipient. For instance, not long ago a young man who was about to be married to the lady of his choice was informed by her father one evening as he called for her that only ten minutes previously the girl had been brought in dead. She was crossing the road near her house when a great brewer's dray turned the corner suddenly, knocking her over and killing her on the spot. She was to have been married to the young man the following week, and, loving her deeply as he did, her fiance felt the shook so keenly that within an hour from the reception of the news he was dead. At the post-mortem examination it was found that his heart was torn right asunder, a state of affairs which the doctor ascribed to the sudden shock sending an abnormal flow of blood to the heart. This threw more additional strain upon that organ than it was able to bear, and consequently rent it asunder. Upon this showing, therefore, it would appear that there is more in ‘a broken heart' than most people think.