The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin (adult books to read TXT) 📕

Dr. Crichton Browne, at my request, closely attended to this expression in the numerous insane patients under his care in the West Riding Asylum; and he is familiar with Duchenne’s photographs of the action of the grief-muscles. He informs me that they may constantly be seen in energetic action in cases of melancholia, and especially of hypochondria; and that the persistent lines or furrows, due to their habitual contraction, are characteristic of the physiognomy of the insane belonging to these two classes. Dr. Browne carefully observed for me during a considerable period three cases of hypochondria, in which the grief-muscles were persistently contracted.

In one of these, a widow, aged 51, fancied that she had lost all her viscera, and that her whole body was empty.

She wore an expression of great distress, and beat her semi-closed hands rhythmically together for hours. The grief-muscles were permanently contracted, and the upper eyelids arched.

This condition lasted for months; she then recovered, and her countenance resumed its natural expression.

A second case presented nearly the same peculiarities, with the addition that the corners of the mouth were depressed.

Mr. Patrick Nicol has also kindly observed for me several cases in the Sussex Lunatic Asylum, and has communicated to me full details with respect to three of them; but they need not here be given.

From his observations on melancholic patients, Mr. Nicol concludes that the inner ends of the eyebrows are almost always more or less raised, with the wrinkles on the forehead more or less plainly marked.

In the case of one young woman, these wrinkles were observed to be in constant slight play or movement. In some cases the corners of the mouth are depressed, but often only in a slight degree.

Some amount of difference in the expression of the several melancholic patients could almost always be observed. The eyelids generally droop; and the skin near their outer corners and beneath them is wrinkled.

The naso-labial fold, which runs from the wings of the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, and which is so conspicuous in blubbering children, is often plainly marked in these patients.

Although with the insane the grief-muscles often act persistently; yet in ordinary cases they are sometimes brought unconsciously into momentary action by ludicrously slight causes.

A gentleman rewarded a young lady by an absurdly small present; she pretended to be offended, and as she upbraided him, her eyebrows became extremely oblique, with the forehead properly wrinkled.

Another young lady and a youth, both in the highest spirits, were eagerly talking together with extraordinary rapidity; and I noticed that, as often as the young lady was beaten, and could not get out her words fast enough, her eyebrows went obliquely upwards, and rectangular furrows were formed on her forehead. She thus each time hoisted a flag of distress; and this she did half-a-dozen times in the course of a few minutes.

I made no remark on the subject, but on a subsequent occasion I asked her to act on her grief-muscles; another girl who was present, and who could do so voluntarily, showing her what was intended.

She tried repeatedly, but utterly failed; yet so slight a cause of distress as not being able to talk quickly enough, sufficed to bring these muscles over and over again into energetic action.

The expression of grief, due to the contraction of the grief-muscles, is by no means confined to Europeans, but appears to be common to all the races of mankind. I have, at least, received trustworthy accounts in regard to Hindoos, Dhangars (one of the aboriginal hill-tribes of India, and therefore belonging to a quite distinct race from the Hindoos), Malays, Negroes and Australians. With respect to the latter, two observers answer my query in the affirmative, but enter into no details.

Mr. Taplin, however, appends to my descriptive remarks the words “this is exact.” With respect to negroes, the lady who told me of Fra Angelico’s picture, saw a negro towing a boat on the Nile, and as he encountered an obstruction, she observed his grief-muscles in strong action, with the middle of the forehead well wrinkled.

Mr. Geach watched a Malay man in Malacca, with the corners of his mouth much depressed, the eyebrows oblique, with deep short grooves on the forehead. This expression lasted for a very short time; and Mr. Geach remarks it “was a strange one, very much like a person about to cry at some great loss.”

In India Mr. H. Erskine found that the natives were familiar with this expression; and Mr. J. Scott, of the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, has obligingly sent me a full description of two cases.

He observed during some time, himself unseen, a very young Dhangar woman from Nagpore, the wife of one of the gardeners, nursing her baby who was at the point of death; and he distinctly saw the eyebrows raised at the inner corners, the eyelids drooping, the forehead wrinkled in the middle, the mouth slightly open, with the corners much depressed. He then came from behind a screen of plants and spoke to the poor woman, who started, burst into a bitter flood of tears, and besought him to cure her baby.

The second case was that of a Hindustani man, who from illness and poverty was compelled to sell his favourite goat.

After receiving the money, he repeatedly looked at the money in his hand and then at the goat, as if doubting whether he would not return it. He went to the goat, which was tied up ready to be led away, and the animal reared up and licked his hands.

His eyes then wavered from side to side; his “mouth was partially closed, with the corners very decidedly depressed.”

At last the poor man seemed to make up his mind that he must part with his goat, and then, as Mr. Scott saw, the eyebrows became slightly oblique, with the characteristic puckering or swelling at the inner ends, but the wrinkles on the forehead were not present.

The man stood thus for a minute, then heaving a deep sigh, burst into tears, raised up his two hands, blessed the goat, turned round, and without looking again, went away.

On the cause of the obliquity of the eyebrows under suffering.—

During several years no expression seemed to me so utterly perplexing as this which we are here considering. Why should grief or anxiety cause the central fasciae alone of the frontal muscle together with those round the eyes, to contract? Here we seem to have a complex movement for the sole purpose of expressing grief; and yet it is a comparatively rare expression, and often overlooked.

I believe the explanation is not so difficult as it at first appears.

Dr. Duchenne gives a photograph of the young man before referred to, who, when looking upwards at a strongly illuminated surface, involuntarily contracted his grief-muscles in an exaggerated manner.

I had entirely forgotten this photograph, when on a very bright day with the sun behind me, I met, whilst on horseback, a girl whose eyebrows, as she looked up at me, became extremely oblique, with the proper furrows on her forehead. I have observed the same movement under similar circumstances on several subsequent occasions.

On my return home I made three of my children, without giving them any clue to my object, look as long and as attentively as they could, at the summit of a tall tree standing against an extremely bright sky.

With all three, the orbicular, corrugator, and pyramidal muscles were energetically contracted, through reflex action, from the excitement of the retina, so that their eyes might be protected from the bright light.

But they tried their utmost to look upwards; and now a curious struggle, with spasmodic twitchings, could be observed between the whole or only the central portion of the frontal muscle, and the several muscles which serve to lower the eyebrows and close the eyelids.

The involuntary contraction of the pyramidal caused the basal part of their noses to be transversely and deeply wrinkled.

In one of the three children, the whole eyebrows were momentarily raised and lowered by the alternate contraction of the whole frontal muscle and of the muscles surrounding the eyes, so that the whole breadth of the forehead was alternately wrinkled and smoothed.

In the other two children the forehead became wrinkled in the middle part alone, rectangular furrows being thus produced; and the eyebrows were rendered oblique, with their inner extremities puckered and swollen,—

in the one child in a slight degree, in the other in a strongly marked manner. This difference in the obliquity of the eyebrows apparently depended on a difference in their general mobility, and in the strength of the pyramidal muscles. In both these cases the eyebrows and forehead were acted on under the influence of a strong light, in precisely the same manner, in every characteristic detail, as under the influence of grief or anxiety.

Duchenne states that the pyramidal muscle of the nose is less under the control of the will than are the other muscles round the eyes.

He remarks that the young man who could so well act on his grief-muscles, as well as on most of his other facial muscles, could not contract the pyramidals.[5] This power, however, no doubt differs in different persons.

The pyramidal muscle serves to draw down the skin of the forehead between the eyebrows, together with their inner extremities.

The central fasciae of the frontal are the antagonists of the pyramidal; and if the action of the latter is to be specially checked, these central fasciae must be contracted. So that with persons having powerful pyramidal muscles, if there is under the influence of a bright light an unconscious desire to prevent the lowering of the eyebrows, the central fasciae of the frontal muscle must be brought into play; and their contraction, if sufficiently strong to overmaster the pyramidals, together with the contraction of the corrugator and orbicular muscles, will act in the manner just described on the eyebrows and forehead.

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