coughing, almost every one has to wipe his eyes. In violent vomiting or
retching, as I have myself experienced and seen in others, the
orbicular muscles are strongly contracted, and tears sometimes flow
freely down the cheeks. It has been suggested to me that this may be
due to irritating matter being injected into the nostrils, and causing
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
himself suffered the next morning from an attack of retching, 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 energetic
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, followed 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 muscles 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,[619] 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.
Professor Donders writes to me to the following effect: I have
observed some cases of a very curious affection when, after a slight
rub (_attouchement_), for example, from the friction of a coat, which
caused neither a wound nor a contusion, spasms of the orbicular muscles
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