300 FEAR. Chap. XII. 



ing and contracting in the insane, he has not been able 

 to connect its action with any emotional condition in 

 them, though he carefully attended to patients suffering 

 from great fear. Mr. Nicol, on the other hand, has ob- 

 served three cases in which this muscle appeared to be 

 more or less permanently contracted under the influence 

 of melancholia, associated with much dread; but in one 

 of these cases, various other muscles about the neck and 

 head were subject to sjDasmodic contractions. 



Dr. W. Ogle observed for me in one of the London 

 hospitals about twenty patients, just before, they were 

 put under the influence of chloroform for operations. 

 They exhibited some trepidation, but no great terror. 

 In only four of the cases was the platysma visibly con- 

 tracted; and it did not begin to contract until the pa- 

 tients began to crv. The muscle seemed to contract at 

 the moment of each deep-drawn inspiration; so that it 

 is very doubtful whether the contraction depended at 

 all on the emotion of fear. In a fifth case, the patient, 

 who was not chloroformed, was much terrified; and his 

 platysma was more forcibly and persistently contracted 

 than in the other cases. But even here there is room 

 for doubt, for the muscle which appeared to be unusually 

 developed, was seen by Dr. Ogle to contract as the man 

 moved his head from the pillow, after the operation was 

 over. 



As I felt much perplexed why, in any case, a super- 

 ficial muscle on the neck should be especially affected 

 by fear, I applied to my many obliging correspondents 

 for information about the contraction of this muscle 

 under other circumstances. It would be superfluous to 

 give all the answers which I have received. They show 

 that this muscle acts, often in a variable manner and 

 degree, under many different conditions. It is violently 

 contracted in hydrophobia, and in a somewhat less de- 



