To the Editor:—
Sophocles (C. 497 B. C.—405 or 406 B. C.) died suddenly and happily—probably from overexertion while giving a public reading of his tragedy "Antigone" or/and from overexcitement and joy when he was proclaimed victor in a contest, after reading the play or, as is altogether likely, from coronary thrombosis or a "little stroke" in his advanced old age, rather than from choking on an unripe grape!Of interest, now, is the fact that Sophocles 2,400 years ago knew of, and wrote about, "little strokes." In his "Oedipus Tyrannus," 961, Sophocles says, "A little stroke puts aged bodies to sleep." Thus Walter C. Alvarez, of the Mayo Clinic, has recently revived the term "little stroke!"I might add, too, that the old experienced navigator or pilot Phrontis, son of Onetor and Menelaus' boatman (Homer's Odyssey, Book III), dropped dead suddenly from overexertion with the steering oar of the