retains it, to give force to his arms. Instinct produces
th e same effect in fear, for the moment of alarm is
marked by a sudden inspiration, and a state of preparation
for action. This, the painter requires to
know before he can give an accurate representation
of these conditions of the frame. But it is even more
important to the physician. In the asthmatic, for
example, the chest is kept distended, and the whole
attitude is that best calculated to aid the actions of
the muscles of respiration; and so that attitude and
these actions become symptomatic of the disease.
And can there be a better lesson whereby symptoms
are to be learned, than in the observation of
the natural sympathies and appearances presented
when the frame is wrought upon by the sentiments
of the mind ? An uninformed person walks through
the wards of an hospital with a sensation varying
only in intensity, but the physician sees a thousand
features of disease to which he is blind, and suffers
hopes and fears to which he is a stranger. The physician
sees but a part, yet that partial view is attended
with a train of consequences which none can perceive
but those who are acquainted with the secret ties
which bind the parts together.
It is the observation of these ties, these cords of
sympathy which unite the body in its natural and
healthful motions, in its agency under passion, and
when suffering from disease, which the author proposes
to be the chief subject of the following Essays.
No one will deny that the signs in the eye must
be noticed with more interest, and consequently with
more minuteness, in proportion as the classification
of its muscles and the sources of its sympathies are
better understood.
It is repeatedly shown in these Essays, that the
marks of passion and of bodily suffering are the same,
and that the respiratory organs are the source of all
expression, as well as of a very extensive range of
symptoms in disease. Let us take an example of a