PHYSIOGNOMY OF DISEASE. 179 



agitation, excitement, or fury even, all which are indicated 

 by her cry. 



On the other hand, there may be an absence of the usual 

 voice-sounds ; taciturnity may take the place of noisiness. 

 Taciturnity is sometimes an accompaniment of melancholia ; 

 occasionally it is said to be a natural characteristic of a 

 species or individual ; or it may be both natural and morbid 

 in the same species or individual under different circum- 

 stances, as in the lori (Cassell). 



The whole phenomena of mental excitement are important, 

 in relation especially to the incidence of insanity ; for such 

 excitement is often only the first stage of mania. Perhaps 

 the most important feature connected with it is its duration. 

 If protracted it is but too apt to become also intensified, in 

 which condition it either amounts to, or passes into, mania. 



The ' wildness ' of excitement is frequently referred to by 

 writers. Animals are said to be, from very opposite causes, 

 ( wild with excitement ; ' for instance, young sporting dogs 

 on some of their first expeditions. This wildness expresses 

 itself in a great variety of ways, involving especially many 

 singularities of conduct. High spirits,' including an ex- 

 uberant friskiness and frisking, are sometimes literally the 

 converse of c low spirits ' in the same animal, the two condi- 

 tions alternating as in man, and both being essentially mor- 

 bid. On the other hand, unnaturally high spirits in such an 

 animal as the dog may be merely the effect of exuberance of 

 joy. But in such a case, as is pointed out in another 

 chapter [on f The Moral Causes of Insanity '], there is danger 

 arising from the excess of the emotion. 



Excitability the liability to become excited so common 

 and natural in the young, becomes, as in man, moderated in 

 age. 



A familiar form of excitement that may be either physi- 

 ological or pathological, according to circumstances, and 

 correspondingly simply amusing or dangerous, is that of 

 stall-fed cattle on their emancipation in spring. Having 

 been confined during the long, gloomy, severe winter weather 

 to their byres, they are sent out to pasture on some sunny 

 spring day. At first they appear dazed or giddy. But 



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