BLUSHING AND BLANCHING 467 



environment from within or from without, and above all, 

 initiated and determined by the most transcendental of 

 human attributes, viz. human consciousness and emotion ; 

 we must further bear in mind that the whole mechanism, 

 material and dynamic, concerned in the formation and 

 expression of these phenomena is but an instrument for 

 the recording of characteristics which may be " known 

 and read of all men," an instrument, moreover, that can be 

 "played upon," and can " emit a music," ranging in height 

 and depth of tone and quality within limits as wide as 

 those of the human race. 



A rhythm and play, moreover, characterise their occur- 

 rence, which sound to the very depths the seas of human 

 happiness and sorrow, and which lend a halo of romance 

 to even the commonest life, when viewed in its relation- 

 ships to all that is noblest and best, and all that is coarsest 

 and worst in the great human cosmos. 



Pleasure may be seen depicted in the least expected 

 quarters, and pain and suffering where they were not 

 suspected to have obtained a footing ; yea, here can often 

 be read the truth of the oft-repeated saying, in the calm- 

 ness and imperturbability of right thinking, saying, and 

 doing, that " virtue is its own reward." 



Flushing and blushing are due to increased blood pres- 

 sure throughout certain generally well-defined areas of 

 capillary circulation, while blanching is due to retarded, or 

 abolished capillary circulation plus, most probably, increased 

 neuro-terminal circulation, with culminating stasis, as the 

 condition assumes the character of permanency. At a 

 glance it will be seen that the opposed states of flushing 

 and blushing and of blanching cannot possibly co-exist, 

 inasmuch as they are the outcome of diametrically opposed 

 conditions, flowing out of the involvement of two differently 

 constituted vasculatures, and the existence of two diffe- 

 rently coloured circulatory fluids, and that they must, or do, 

 fluctuate in the order of their occurrence and continuance. 

 Moreover, a distinct value attaches to the power of being 

 able clinically to read the nature and meaning of any 

 departure from their normal form of occurrence, or any 

 perversion of nature's methods of showing on the surface 

 the method of the more deep-seated working of the 



