mortal affection, to which my attention was first
drawn by the study of expression.
When a soldier is desperately wounded by gunshot,
or when amputation, or any other great operation
of surgery is performed, a class of obscure
symptoms sometimes arise, and the man dies, without
the proximate cause of his death being comprehended.
The cause of his death is inflammation in the lungs*
hut with symptoms so slight as to have no correspondence
with the common description of pulmonary
inflammation. There is no violent pain, no cough,
no inflammatory pulse; you observe only a tremulous
motion and swelling of the upper lip, and working
of the muscles of the nostrils. Called to him by this
sign, you find his voice feeble and his words cut;
and with symptoms no more marked than these, he
dies.
Wh en we learn that the muscles about the lips
and nostrils are respiratory muscles, and when we
xvn
know that a respiratory nerve goes purposely to
combine these muscles with the motion of the thorax,
and above all, when by such investigation of the
anatomy, we find that these same motions indicate
some powerful emotions of the mind, are we not prepared
to be more attentive observers, and to discover
such symptoms as must remain obscure to those who
have no clew to them ?
Perhaps it may be proper to make some apology
for the sketches which accompany the text. I have
often found it necessary to take the aid of the pencil,
in slight marginal illustrations, in order to express
what I despaired of making intelligible by the use
of language merely; as in speaking of the forms of
the head, or the operation of the muscles of the face.
The slightness of these sketches, as they appeared in
the manuscript, explained sufficiently the humble intentions
of the Author. But, under the graver, they
have assumed an appearance more soft and finished,
than was perhaps to be desired ; and certainly stand
more in need of an apology for their incorrectness.