164 EXPRESSION OF SUFFERING: Chap. VI. 



ing 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 odd coincidence, he him- 

 self suffered the next morning from an attack of retch- 

 ing, and three days subsequently observed a lady under 

 a similar attack; and he is certain that in neither case 

 an atom of matter was ejected from the stomach; yet the 

 orbicular muscles were strongly contracted, and tears 

 freely secreted. I can also speak positively to the ener- 

 getic contraction of these same muscles round the eyes, 

 and to the coincident free secretion of tears, when the 

 abdominal muscles act with unusual force in a downward 

 direction on the intestinal canal. 



Yawning commences with a deep inspiration, fol- 

 lowed by a long and forcible expiration; and at the 

 same time almost all the muscles of the body are strongly 

 contracted, including those round the eyes. During this 

 act tears are often secreted, and I have seen them even 

 rolling down the cheeks. 



I have frequently observed that when persons scratch 

 some point which itches intolerably, they forcibly close 

 their eyelids; but they do not, as I believe, first draw a 

 deep breath and then expel it with force; and I have 

 never noticed that the eyes then become filled with tears; 

 but I am not prepared to assert that this does not occur. 

 The forcible closure of the eyelids is, perhaps, merely a 

 part of that general action by which almost all the mus- 

 cles of the body are at the same time rendered rigid. It 

 is quite different from the gentle closure of the eyes 

 which often accompanies, as Gratiolet remarks, 19 the 

 smelling a delicious odour, or the tasting a delicious 

 morsel, and which probably originates in the desire to 

 shut out any disturbing impression through the eyes. 



in 



' De la Physionomie,' 1SG5, p. 217. 



