"Frightened to Death"

Doctors have long believed that there is basis in fact for the old tag: so-and-so was "frightened to death." But they had little idea just how it might come about, i.e., how the emotion of fear could make the heart stop beating--victims of heart trouble are not likely to be sitting in a doctor's office having an electrocardiogram taken when they suffer a fatal fright. Now some of the missing evidence is in.

The 29-year-old woman who went to Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital complaining of palpitations and a "smothering sensation" had nothing wrong with her heart. Drs. W. Proctor Harvey and Samuel A. Levine ordered psychiatric treatment for her. Then the patient volunteered to test the effect of a drug (amyl nitrite) on heart sounds. At first the electrocardiograph gave normal readings; so did the phonocardiograph. But as soon as the patient saw the drug, her heart began a machine-gun beat. Scared nearly to death themselves, the doctors put the drug away and her heart went back to normal.

In this type of patient, the doctors reported in last week's A.M.A. Journal, it might have taken nothing but a more severe fright to cause a prolonged heart speedup. And this is the sort of speed-up that can lead to fibrillation (a futile, nonrhythmic quivering) of the lower part of the heart, which means death.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.