From circa 1911, the 131-page "In sacred memory of William Thornton Parker, Jr., 1876-1900" regards a young Harvard law student who'd graduated MIT with top honors and "scarcely [took] any time for meals and little for sleep" in his pursuit of higher education.
According to news reports at the time of his death, Parker was taking an exam in constitutional law (which he was pursuing as a specialty) when he suddenly "went insane." Hands on his head, he started to scream "Constitutional law!" before his tone became "agonized" and he followed with moans and "unintelligible sentences." He died a few days later.
The reports claimed he perished of "an abscess on the brain" caused by "intense mental strain" -- or "overstudy." Modern belief is that he died of an aneurysm -- which is apparently what was believed at the time by those not seeking juicy headlines: The death notice appearing in the Harvard Crimson mentions neither an "abscess" nor "insanity" as the cause of his demise but, rather, what it very likely was -- a cerebral hemorrhage.
By the way, the title of this post came from a comment on a blog entry about Parker, found here, where you can find reproductions of the newspaper reports as well as a link to the Crimson obituary (which, as one would expect, doesn't hint at all to the dramatic scene that occurred during what could now be humorously referred to as an exam able to drive one to deadly madness).
