Daily Globe

Miss Multon and Heart Disease.

"When I first appeared in the character of Miss Multon," said Clara Morris to an interviewer, "she died at the termination of the play without any apparent reason. I dislike such an old-fashioned way of getting rid of a character without any motive; so I resolved to introduce heart disease and make this the cause of her death. But after my resolution was formed, when I began to seek for information, it was very difficult to gain any. The medical books I found, even less than the legal, throw no light on the disease that could be of use to an actress or artiste, painter or sculptor. Dr. Seguin, of New York, to whom I applied for information, gave me all he could. But doctors very seldom see any suffering from an attack of angina pectoris, or heart disease, as it either kills at once or is of very short duration, so that the patient recovers before the doctor arrives. The whole attack, in fact, is nothing but a spasm and collapse. A well-known doctor, who made a specialty of that disease, which I thought might be able to tell me something about it, had also never seen a specimen of that spasm. A general practitioner said there was not much difference between a spasm of the heart disease and those in fits and convulsions.

It seemed hopeless to inquire further. At last, three days before the play was produced, Dr. Seguin came to me in a state of great excitement and said he had found a patient. He was sitting at his desk in his office writing, when some disturbance occurred in the street, and a little girl, without a hat or a bonnet, rushed in and begged him to come out; her father was dying in the street of heart disease. He seized his hypodermic instrument and hurried out--performed a hypodermic operation on the man, and he recovered. As he described the symptoms of the attack, he said that one hand clutched the arm of the chair convulsively so that his nails were sunk in the wood and partly broken off; his other hand spasmodically grasped his throat. The difference between this attack and other spasms was the horrible, unbearable beseeching look, for every one who suffers from it describes it as a feeling of death creeping over them, and the knowledge that they are dying gives a wild consciousness to the eyes, which, in fits are generally turned up or rolling. If the sufferer recovers, his limbs become quickly relaxed and limp.

When I gave my interpretation of the death of Miss Multon," added Miss Morris, "the doctor had a regular run to the theater. I would see doctors dotted all around in the house. Dr. Baker congratulated me on my truthful representation of the disease. In the drama I asked Dr. Osborne to interpolate a line in the first act referring to the disease, but somehow it was never said, and I took it as a great compliment that without reference to it in the play the disease was recognized so quickly by the physicians who had not known anything about it. It is not artistic to produce any specialty merely for the purpose of showing up a physical disease, but as Miss Multon had to be killed off, I thought it was more artistic to give her some reason for dying than simply kill her, as you have no more use for her in the play. The disease is very sudden. You go out like a candle very suddenly in horrible spasms."