FRIGHT AND TERROR

I

One of the most terrible effects of fear is the paralysis which allows neither of escape nor defence.

The history of battles and massacres, the chronicles of the courts of justice, are full of frightful occurrences when terror strangled even the instinct of flight in the victim.

But how does it happen that under the influence of a powerful emotion the empire of the will over the muscles ceases, and the energy for defence fails?

If we study the phenomena of sleep, we can easily imagine that there are links between the centres of the will and the muscles which may, in certain circumstances, be severed. We all know what nightmare is; we all remember the oppression we have suffered when, in a dream, we have felt ourselves suffocating under an immovable weight on the chest, or from a noose round the throat which we cannot unloose. These dreams, in which we feel ourselves paralysed, are a positive torture; the ground gives way under us and we are precipitated into an abyss; we fall while being pursued and cannot get up again; we find ourselves stretched out in the middle of the street and hear the approaching roll of wheels that will crush us, or see a horse gallop up to trample us with its hoofs. We cannot even scream, hands and feet try in vain to move, the oppression and despair increase until the nightmare passes and we awake with beating heart and laboured breath.

Women and children overcome by violent fear turn their back, cover their eyes with their hands, or creep into a corner without looking behind them. In terror even the most intrepid men do not think of flight; it seems as though the nerves of defence were severed and they were left to their fate. Even in slight emotions we notice a partial failure of the power of the will over the muscles of the hand. Anyone weeping bitterly or laughing heartily cannot steady the pen between the fingers, and the writing is altered.

Whytt noticed that after the head is cut off an animal, its excitability increases greatly after the lapse of a few minutes. The electric stimuli applied to the skin of the trunk immediately after decapitation do not produce any movement of reaction, but a few minutes later the same electric current causes vigorous movements of the legs.

This unexpected phenomena gave rise to the belief that there were mechanisms in the spinal cord which, when irritated by the violent blow of the axe, were capable of arresting the reflex movements. But there are many other experiments which lead us rather to suspect the existence in the nerve-centres of some mechanism which, in certain conditions, nullifies the power of the will over the muscles.

Anyone who has tritons in an aquarium can try the experiment of seizing hold of one by the leg with a pair of pincers; he will see that it remains motionless, almost rigid, for a few minutes. Frogs, when suffering a strong irritation of the sensory nerves, are no longer capable of making a single movement. There are also many other experiments which show us how, under the influence of violent and supernormal excitation, the molecular work of the cells of the spinal cord, requisite for the production of muscular movement through voluntary stimuli, is impeded.

II

Horses tremble when they see a tiger, and are no longer able to run. Even monkeys cannot move when in great fear. The gibbons, the most agile of all monkeys, when taken by surprise on the ground, passively allow themselves to be bound by man. Seals become so agitated when surprised and pursued on shore, that they fall at every step, snort, tremble, and cannot defend themselves.

I quote a passage taken from Brehm’s 'Animal Life,’ in order to show in what an ignoble way man makes use of the disastrous effects which fright produces. Seals are very intelligent animals, and so good-tempered, that on lonely islands they look with the utmost indifference at travellers arriving there, and such is their trust, that they tranquilly allow them to pass or stop in their midst, while they sun themselves on the shore. But as soon as they learn from sad experience to know this terrible destroyer of animals, they become so cautious that they are with difficulty approached or surprised out of the water.

'To the south of Santa Barbara, in California, there is a plateau, rising about thirty metres above the level of the sea, which is a favourite place of repose with the seals. As soon as the boats were lowered, the animals descended from the plateau and plunged into the sea, where they stayed till all danger was over and the crew reassembled on board. The attempt to surprise them was repeatedly made without success, until one day, when a fresh wind was blowing from the plateau towards the ship, and a thick fog afforded effectual concealment. The crew landed at a certain distance, and, keeping to leeward, crept cautiously up to the herd, then rushed suddenly upon them, shouting noisily and brandishing guns, clubs, and spears. Overwhelmed with fear, with staring eyes, their tongues hanging out of their open mouths, the poor animals remained motionless, petrified, until at last the oldest and most courageous males tried to break through the line of destroyers who closed the way towards the sea. But they were killed before they reached the water, the crew then slowly approaching the others, which retreated just as slowly. An attack of this kind soon becomes a butchery, because the poor animals lose all hope of escape, and abandon themselves helplessly to their fate. This herd numbered seventy-five seals, and when all had been killed with clubs and spears but one single animal, the crew thought to try whether it would allow itself to be driven on without resistance. Forced on by its cruel persecutors, the poor creature moved as well as it could over the thorns and undergrowth, until at last, wounded and bleeding, it stopped, stretched out its fins full of thorns to the sailors, as though to move them to pity and beg for mercy. A blow from a club on its head put an end to its sufferings.’[30]

And this is Man!

III

Fear is more manifest in birds than in any other animal. We sometimes see jugglers, as a proof of their magic power, take a little bird in their hand and lay it on its back, showing that it no longer moves, although it might easily fly away. This is an old experiment which was studied by the celebrated Jesuit Athanasius Kirchner, professor in the Roman College, who published a book in 1646 with the strange title of 'Ars magna lucis et umbrÆ.’ In the chapter 'De imaginatione gallinÆ,’ he describes the following experiment: If the feet of a hen are tied together, and she is then laid upon the floor, she will at first try to free herself by moving her body and flapping her wings, but when she perceives that all attempts are vain, she remains quiet. If, as soon as she is motionless, a line is drawn on the floor with a piece of chalk, beginning near her eye, the bird will not try to escape even after the feet are loosed, nor even when she is coaxed to move.

Many of us, when boys, have captured a hen, screamed into her ear, and then, having put her head under her wing, have laid her breast upwards on the table, saying that she was asleep.

This trick, known I believe in many countries, may be considered as another form of the experimentum mirabile of Kirchner. No physiologist had occupied himself with this phenomenon until Czermak, in a treatise presented to the Academy of Sciences of Vienna in 1872, maintained that it arose from an hypnotic state, or momentary somnolence. But this hypothesis does not explain why the breathing is laboured, the eyes staring, why the animals are unable to move even when touched, nor why their comb and wittles are so pale, which is not the case in sleep.

Preyer was the first to declare that these effects are due to fright, and as there was no word in the German language expressing the condition of a man overcome with fright, who is incapable of speaking, moving, or thinking, he called it cataplexy.[31] From his work bearing this title I extract a few observations.

Of all mammals guinea-pigs are most susceptible to fright. Simply taking hold of them, and keeping them a moment in the hand without any pressure, is often sufficient to paralyse them with fear. Guinea-pigs may remain half an hour in this state, rabbits not more than ten minutes, while frogs will remain for hours without moving. It is impossible that this interval be spent in sleep, for the animals expel fÆces and urine. Kirchner maintained the necessity of drawing a white line from the beak of the animal, so that it should imagine itself bound by this mark; but this is not true, as they remain just as motionless without the line, and cataplexy is even more easily produced when the animal sees nothing. Crabs taken out of the water allow themselves to be put into the strangest positions, and remain for a long time motionless. Preyer made similar experiments on frogs and mice.[32] Some serpents remain rigid when their head is slightly pressed, as Moses is said to have done before Pharaoh.

To produce this state a sudden, unexpected agitation is necessary; it is a matter of indifference in what way the animal is treated, as all depends on the violent fright caused. A similar condition has been observed in men struck by lightning and in animals after electrical discharges from a powerful machine. Many birds, though scarcely wounded by small shot, fall to the ground as though struck by lightning, panting, with wide-open eyes, and remaining motionless when placed on their back. This also is an instance of the cataplectic condition, for, as their wound is not mortal, nor even serious, they recover soon afterwards.

Some animals and many insects remain for a long time motionless when danger threatens. To one of these zoologists have given the name of anobium, as though it feigned death when touched. Many other coleoptera act in the same way, not even moving when they are caught, transfixed with a pin, and roasted over a flame. Preyer justly remarks that this cannot be a feint, nor an instinct which tells them to preserve the appearance of death as a means of saving their life; for it would then be incomprehensible that they should let themselves be burnt alive rather than abandon the deception.

Certainly an animal that does not move can more easily escape from an enemy. Darwin remarks that when an animal is alarmed, it stops an instant to collect its senses and discover the source of the danger, and decide whether it should escape or defend itself; but this is certainly not the origin and reason of the phenomena of cataplexy and fear, which we must consider as a serious imperfection in the animal organism.

The phenomena which we are at present investigating find a counterpart in the story of the Medusa petrifying those who looked upon her, in the legend of the basilisk that could kill with a look, and of the serpent that caused death to mortals by hissing. One of these legends holds its ground to the present day, namely, that the breath of serpents is poisonous, and that they have a magic power in their look which attracts and fascinates their prey. But this is not correct, these also are cataplectic phenomena. When defenceless birds see a serpent approach their nest, they begin to scream and flap their wings, as though trying to draw its attention upon themselves, and so to save their young. Blinded by love and emotion they rush upon the enemy and then remain as though paralysed, scarcely moving wings or claws, or else they let themselves fall into the jaws of the serpent and are devoured.

IV

It is well-known that fear may result in sudden death. Bichat maintained that it was essentially paralysis of the heart which causes death in strong emotions. 'The forces of the circulatory system,’ he says, 'are worked up to such a pitch that they cannot recover from the sudden exhaustion, and death ensues.’

Old people in particular are liable to succumb to strong mental emotions. This fact stands in apparent contradiction to that of their sensibility, which is generally much less acute than in youth, but it is the weakness of their nervous system which destroys the balance. Often after great catastrophes parents succumb in consequence of the death of their children, while the brothers and sisters offer more resistance to grief.

Marcello Donato and Paolo Giovio relate that at the siege of Buda, in the war against the Turks, there was a youth whose valour excited the admiration of all. Unhappily he fell a victim to the repeated attacks of the besiegers. When the battle was over, the leaders hastened to learn who the hero was. Scarcely had the visor been taken from his face than Raischach of Swabia recognised his son. He stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon his son, then fell dead to the ground without uttering a word.

As a proof that weakness more easily causes death in emotion, I here mention an experiment of Johannes MÜller. He destroyed the liver of some frogs, thus rendering them very weak and excitable. The slightest stimuli produced contractions in them, but they did not move if left in peace, and even lived for a long time. Those he took into his hand were immediately attacked by tetanus and died in a few seconds.

Haller tells of a man who, in stepping over a grave, imagined himself seized by the foot, and died the same day; others have died from fear on the day predicted as the day of their death, and some have fallen down dead at the moment they were condemned to death. Haller had already noticed that fear could arrest the action of the heart and profoundly modify the circulation of the blood: hÆmorrhagias supprimit, et menses, et lac, viresque ad venerem necessarias frangit.

Surgeons well know how fatal a violent shock to the nervous system from traumatic or moral causes may prove to their patients. In such cases the medulla oblongata is so depressed in its activity that chloroformisation is sufficient to arrest the action of the heart and respiration. Porta, the great surgeon of the University of Pavia, when his patients died under an operation, used to throw his knife and instruments contemptuously to the ground, and shout in a tone of reproach to the corpse: 'Cowards die from fear.’

My friend Lauder Brunton, professor of medicine at the hospital of Saint Bartholomew, in London, published the following fact a few years ago.[33] An assistant had made himself odious to the students of a certain college; a body of them, therefore, resolved to give him a fright. They put ready a block and an axe in a dark room, then seized the man and led him before a few students dressed in black, who officiated as judges. When he saw these preparations he took it for a joke, but the students assured him that all was meant in earnest, and that he must prepare for death, for he should presently be beheaded. They bound his eyes, forced him to his knees, and bent his head on the block. While one of them made a noise by brandishing the axe, as though to strike the fatal blow, another struck his neck with a wet towel.

When they took the bandage from his eyes he was dead!

V

One of the greatest physiologists of fear was Edgar Allan Poe, the unhappy poet who lived in morbid hallucinations, and died at the age of thirty-seven in a hospital, a victim to intemperance, amidst the horrors and convulsions of delirium tremens.

No one has ever described fear more minutely, none have so ruthlessly analysed, or made us feel with more intensity, the pain of overwhelming emotions—the throbbing which seems to burst the heart and crush the soul, the suffocating oppression, the awful agony of him who awaits death. No one ever plunged the mind of man into more horrible abysses, or led it into darker, gloomier wildernesses. None have ever inspired such horror with storm, tempest, the phosphorescence of decay, the lightning-flashes in the dead of night, the sighs and moans losing themselves in the darkness, the grip of fleshless hands amid the mystery of graves and ruins.

Who can forget those midnight terrors, those streaks of lurid light, those faint footfalls in the dark which make us shudder, those murders which paralyse the limbs, the groans, the strangled cries from the depths of a soul in agony? And those pulsations of the heart, deep, rapid, restrained, sending forth, like a muffled bell, a dull sound which spreads in the silence of the night, beating, throbbing even after death? How useless becomes even the courage of despair before these motionless spectres which fill us with terror! And the tortures and horrors for which words fail us, which still the heart, close the staring eye and numb the trembling limbs, stretch us senseless on this rack of fright and kill us with agony!