Mr. Bunnet informs me that the Australian aborigines when out of
spirits have a chop-fallen appearance. After prolonged suffering the
eyes become dull and lack expression, and are often slightly suffused
with tears. The eyebrows not rarely are rendered oblique, which is due
to their inner ends being raised. This produces peculiarly-formed
wrinkles on the forehead, which are very different from those of a
simple frown; though in some cases a frown alone may be present. The
comers of the mouth are drawn downwards, which is so universally
recognized as a sign of being out of spirits, that it is almost
proverbial.
The breathing becomes slow and feeble, and is often interrupted by deep
sighs. As Gratiolet remarks, whenever our attention is long
concentrated on any subject, we forget to breathe, and then relieve
ourselves by a deep inspiration; but the sighs of a sorrowful person,
owing to his slow respiration and languid circulation, are eminently
characteristic.[701] As the grief of a person in this state
occasionally recurs and increases into a paroxysm, spasms affect the
respiratory muscles, and he feels as if something, the so-called
_globus hystericus_, was rising in his throat. These spasmodic
movements are clearly allied to the sobbing of children, and are
remnants of those severer spasms which occur when a person is said to
choke from excessive grief.[702]
_Obliquity of the eyebrows_. Two points alone in the above description
require further elucidation, and these are very curious ones; namely,
the raising of the inner ends of the eyebrows, and the drawing down of
the corners of the mouth. With respect to the eyebrows, they may
occasionally be seen to assume an oblique position in persons suffering
from deep dejection or anxiety; for instance, I have observed this
movement in a mother whilst speaking about her sick son; and it is
sometimes excited by quite trifling or momentary causes of real or
pretended distress. The eyebrows assume this position owing to the
contraction of certain muscles (namely, the orbiculars, corrugators,
and pyramidals of the nose, which together tend to lower and contract
the eyebrows) being partially cheeked by the more powerful action of
the central fasci of the frontal muscle. These latter fasci by their
contraction raise the inner ends alone of the eyebrows; and as the
corrugators at the same time draw the eyebrows together, their inner
ends become puckered into a fold or lump. This fold is a highly
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