Mezeray mentions that the detestable Charles IX of France, being
under constant agitation and emotion, sank under a disorder which
was accompanied by an exudation of blood from every pore of his
body. This was taken as an attempt of nature to cure by bleeding
according to the theory of the venesectionists. Fabricius
Hildanus mentions a child who, as a rule, never drank anything
but water, but once, contrary to her habit, drank freely of white
wine, and this was soon followed by hemorrhage from the gums,
nose, and skin.
There is a case also related of a woman of forty-five who had
lost her only son. One day she fancied she beheld him beseeching
her to release his soul from purgatory by prayers and fasting
every Friday. The following Friday, which was in the month of
August, and for five succeeding Fridays she had a profuse bloody
perspiration, the disorder disappearing on Friday, March 8th, of
the following year. Pooley says that Maldonato, in his
"Commentaries of Four Gospels," mentions a healthy and robust man
who on hearing of his sentence of death sweated blood, and
Zacchias noted a similar phenomenon in a young man condemned to
the flames. Allusion may also be made to St. Luke, who said of
Christ that in agony He prayed more earnestly, "and His sweat
was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the
ground.
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