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Show 164 EXPHESSION OF SUFFERING : CnAP. VL f . f: nts who whilst· screaming violently is that o youn~ In a '· ' d do n~t commonly weep. witb their eyehds fi~·mly close ' f from two to three until they have at;ralin~d thes ahgoeweover become suffused f. ths 1e1r eye , ' or our mon · . ~ It would appear, as with tears at a much earher age. l d that the lacryrnal glands do not, already remar re ' . some other cause, come to from the want of practice or . ~. d f l' f full functional activity at a very early pen~ o u: :; vVith children at a somewhat later age, crying o . l wailing from any distress is so regularly acco~panier by the shedding of tears, that weeping and crying are t 18 synonymous erms. . · amuse- D nder the opposite etnotton of great JOY o.r ell t as long as laughter is nloderate there IS har y :nen ~ontraction of the muscles round the eyes, so that th:re is no frowning; but when peals of loud_ laug~t~r are uttered with rapid and violent spasmodic explua-tions tears ' strealn down t 1le f:a ce. 1 h ave more t , 1an once' noticed the face of a person, after a paro~ystn of violent laughter, and I could see that t?e orbiCul;~ muscles and those running to the upper. hp were sti. partially contracted, which together with the tearstained cheeks gave to the upper half of th~ face .ali expression not to be distinguished frotn that of a ch.Il<. still blubbering from grief. 'l,he fact of t~ars streatning down the face during violent laughter IS cotnmon to all the races of mankind, as we shal 1 see I· n a f n ture chapter. . · 1 If- In violent coughing, especially when a person IS Ja · choked, the face becomes purple, the veins distended, the orbicular muscles strongly contracted, and tears ts Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwoocl (Diet. of English Etymology, 1!~~~' vol. i. p. 410) says, ~'the verb. to. w~op comes ~ro,t~ Anglo-Saxon '11 " the primary meanmg of which IS simply outCiy. CnAP. VI. 'VEE PING. 165 rnn down the cheeks. Even after a fit of ordinary ~onghing, almost every one has to wipo his ey9s. In violent vo1niting or retching, as J have 1ny~olf exp - rionced and seen in oth rs, tho orLi ular 1nnscles are ~trongly contracted, and tears sometimes flow freely down the cheeks. It has been suggested to n1e that this 1nay be due to irritating matter being injected into the nostrils, and causing by reflex action the secretion of tears. Accordingly I asked one of my informants, a surgeon, to attend to the effects of retching when nothing was thrown up from the stomach; and, by an ocld coincidence, he himself suffered the next morning from an attack of retching, and three days subsequently observed a lady under a siinilar attack ; and he is certain that in neither case an atom of matter was ejected from the stomach ; yet the orbicular 1n uscles were strongly contracted, and tears freely secreted. I can also speak positively to the energetic contraction of t1tese same muscles round the eyes, and to the coincident free secretion of tears, when the abdominal n1uscles act with unusual force in a downward direction on the intestinal canal. Yawning commences with a deep inspiration, followed by a long and forcible expiration; and at the same ti1ne almost all the muscles of the body are strongly contracted, including those round the oye . }Juring this act tears are often secreted, and I have seen them even rolling down the cheeks. I have frequently observed that when persons scratch Rome point which itches intolerably, they forcibly close th ir eyelids; but they do not, as I believe, first draw n d ep breath and then expel it with force; and I l1av never noticed that the eyos thou become filled with tears; bnt I nm not prepared to assert that thi d e not occur. The forcible closure of the eyelids i::;, per- |