other cases, celestial dreams and colloquies have seemed fitting rewards for blameless lives and religious meditation. lt wou!d be pre sumptuous, however, to hazard much upon the final causes of the various modes of termina ting the career of life, not only for certain obvious general reasons, but also because we have known both the virtuous and the vicious pass away in states of unconsciousness, to all appearance precisely similar.
One of the most curious instances of de rangement that vve have met with occurred in a plithisical patient. It consisted in a morbid association of ideas by mere similarity of ver bal sound, or in other words a propensity to rhyme. Every person who came to the bed side was sure to receive a distich in honor of his name; nor could any remark be made in his presence without his seizing one of the words uttered and finding a rhyme for it, in doing which he exhibited great ingenuity. We were unable to ascertain whether lie had been addicted when in health to attempts at metre. Recitations of poetry, appearing to recur from a passive process of inernory, with perfect unconsciousness of what is passing around, are frequent occurrences ; arid the passages selected have often a sing-ular coincidence with events in the life of' the moribund rehearser. Sir W. Scott's touching picture of the death of Madge Wildfire has had many unfic titious counterparts.
Dementia or imbecility sometitnes comes on a short time before death. It is for the most part manifested by an incapacity of concen trating the ideas upon any one subject, and by an all but total failure of memory. The study of the degree of this condition necessary for invalidating a legal document is of great im portance to the medical jurist. The mental weakness is in no respect so painfully exhi bited as in the facility with which the subject of it derives pleasure from puerile amuse ments. " Playing- with flowers" is a token of approaching dissolution enumerated by a dra matic author, one whose observation pervaded human nature in all its phases. We remember visiting a lady in the last stage of a uri nary disorder, during the progress of which she had evinced both strength of mind and re finement of taste :—we found lier arranging with great care, and with demonstrations of delight at her success, a garland of flowers around a chamber utensil. A more humilia
ting spectacle could scarcely be witnessed. We augured that her decease was near athand, and she died on the following day.
In the delirium under consideration, repro ductions of visual sensations bear a considera ble part ; but in some cases the consciousness is exclusively occupied by them ;—they are mere ocular spectra. Thus with a vacant coun tenance, half-shut eyes, and gaping mouth, and in a state of insensibility which no out ward impression can rouse, the .victim of ty phus is seen catching at something in the air. By the adjustment of the finger and thumb, it is evident that the imaginary objects are often minute ; and it is not unlikely that they Dreadfully contrasted with such visions are those which haunt the dying fancies of others. The previous habits and conduct of the indi vidual have sometimes been such as to incline spectators to. enquire whether in the mode of his departure from existence he might not already be receiving retribution; just as, in produce a kind of annoyance like that of musca volitantes, which the hand is instinc tively attempting to remove. Whether the production of such spectra depends upon changes in the retina, or upon changes in the cerebral extremity of the optic nerve, is not altogether certain ; but we incline to the lat ter view, principally because other sensations are often revived though the nerves in which they originated have been paralysed or removed.
Renewals of perceptions of bearing are not uncommon. Such are imaginary voices, and sounds of tolling bells, &c.
No reason has been assigned for that sym ptom noted by the earliest observers—" pick ing. of the bed-clothes ;" or, in Dame Quickly's phraseology, " fumbling with the sheets." But we think it may be readily accounted for as resulting from revivals of tactual sensations, which produce corresponding movements, so that the fingers grasp the bed-clothes in mis take for the imaginary substance. Something analogous to this is witnessed in delirium tremens, a disease in which visual conceptions are particularly liable to vivifaction in the form of animals, and in which also we have witnessed the patient picking the ends of his fingers as if to remove something disagreeably adherent.