When children scream or cry out, they contract, as we know, the
orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles, primarily for the sake of
compressing their eyes, and thus protecting them from being gorged with
blood, and secondarily through habit. I therefore expected to find with
children, that when they endeavoured either to prevent a crying-fit
from coming on, or to stop crying, they would cheek the contraction of
the above-named muscles, in the same manner as when looking upwards at
a bright light; and consequently that the central fasciae of the
frontal muscle would often be brought into play. Accordingly, I began
myself to observe children at such times, and asked others, including
some medical men, to do the same. It is necessary to observe carefully,
as the peculiar opposed action of these muscles is not nearly so plain
in children, owing to their foreheads not easily wrinkling, as in
adults. But I soon found that the grief-muscles were very frequently
brought into distinct action on these occasions. It would be
superfluous to give all the cases which have been observed; and I will
specify only a few. A little girl, a year and a half old, was teased by
some other children, and before bursting into tears her eyebrows became
decidedly oblique. With an older girl the same obliquity was observed,
with the inner ends of the eyebrows plainly puckered; and at the same
time the corners of the mouth were drawn downwards. As soon as she
burst into tears, the features all changed and this peculiar expression
vanished. Again, after a little boy had been vaccinated, which made him
scream and cry violently, the surgeon gave him an orange brought for
the purpose, and this pleased the child much; as he stopped crying all
the characteristic movements were observed, including the formation of
rectangular wrinkles in the middle of the forehead. Lastly, I met on
the road a little girl three or four years old, who had been frightened
by a dog, and when I asked her what was the matter, she stopped
whimpering, and her eyebrows instantly became oblique to an
extraordinary degree.
Here then, as I cannot doubt, we have the key to the problem why the
central fasciae of the frontal muscle and the muscles round the eyes
contract in opposition to each other under the influence of
grief; whether their contraction be prolonged, as with the melancholic
insane, or momentary, from some trifling cause of distress. We have all
of us, as infants, repeatedly contracted our orbicular, corrugator, and
pyramidal muscles, in order to protect our eyes whilst screaming; our
progenitors before us have done the same during many generations; and
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