302 FEAR. Chap. XII. 



cle sometimes contracts, perhaps for the sake of opening 

 the mouth widely, when the breathing is rendered diffi- 

 cult by disease, and during the deep inspirations of cry- 

 ing-fits before an operation. Xow, whenever a person 

 starts at any sudden sight or sound, he instantaneously 

 draws a deep breath; and thus the contraction of the 

 platysma may possibly have become associated with the 

 sense of fear. But there is, I believe, a more efficient 

 relation. The first sensation of fear, or the imagination 

 of something dreadful, commonly excites a shudder. I 

 have caught myself giving a little involuntary shudder 

 at a painful thought, and I distinctly perceived that my 

 platysma contracted; so it does if I simulate a shudder. 

 I have asked others to act in this manner; and in some 

 the muscle contracted, but not in others. One of my 

 sons, whilst getting out of bed, shuddered from the cold, 

 and, as he happened to have his hand on his neck, he 

 plainly felt that this muscle strongly contracted. He 

 then voluntarily shuddered, as he had done on former 

 occasions, but the platysma was not then affected. Mr. 

 J. Wood has also several times observed this muscle con- 

 tracting in patients, when stripped for examination, and 

 who were not frightened, but shivered slightly from the 

 cold. Unfortunately I have not been able to ascertain 

 whether, when the whole body shakes, as in the cold stage 

 of an ague fit, the platysma contracts. But as it cer- 

 tainly often contracts during a shudder; and as a shud- 

 der or shiver often accompanies the first sensation of 

 fear, we have, I think, a clue to its action in this latter 

 case. 23 Its contraction, however, is not an invariable 



23 Duchenne takes, in fact, this view (ibid. p. 45), as he 

 attributes the contraction of the platysma to the shiver- 

 ing- of fear (frisson de la peur); but he elsewhere compares 

 the action with that which causes the hair of frightened 

 quadrupeds to stand erect; and this can hardly be consid- 

 ered as quite correct. 



