Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-01-07
THE FACE AS AN INDEX.
Influence Of the Emotions on Its
Appearance.
Brave Men Sometimes Turn Pale In the
Face of Danger as Well as towards
Views OF Learned individuals
on the Subject.


tremble in the face of danger is one of
the popular fallacies that unthinlxing
people cling to with all the tenacity Of
ignorance. By many persons the man
who pales and trembles under great ex-
element is called Observation-Disclosures
ever that may mean-and is looked
upon as a coward. In fact, there are
but few people who do not hold that ex-
cessive pallor is one of the distinguish
ing marks of mean, dastardly spirit.
An egregious error this, and one that
should have been dispelled along with
the belief in witches, the divine right of
kings and similar popular monstrosities.
Well grounded in this belief, a reporter
of the San Francisco Chronicle set out
to secure data on the subject from re-
liable sources.
"Do the brave turn pale?"
"Of course they do" said DR.. j. F.
Gibbon, of that city, to whom the in
quiry was propounded, land red, too.
for that matter"
sit is not, then, only the towards who
turn pale and tremble in the face of
danger?"
"By no MEANS" said the doctor; 81
have seen the bravest men get as white
as death when laboring under intense
excitement. l have seen men pale and
tremble under the excitement caused by
intense pain, and they were men, too,
who showed their braveness by refus-
ing to be put under the influence of an
anesthetic, and who did not utter q
single cry when the knife was inflicting
the most excruciating fortunes. Under
the same circumstances 1 have seen
other men turn red, the blood seeming
to burst through their skin. The
truth is that the various ex-
pressions of emotions shown by
men can not be made guide
as to his inner thoughts and feel
ings. The only things these express
sions do show is that the individual is
undergoing intense excitement. but
whether of fear, anger, valor or pleas
ure, can only be determined by the indi-
viduars actions"
DIR. S. B. Clevenger, the famous writer
on nervous diseases, in a recent publica-
ton says:
1.-The matter of blushing or paling is
wholly beyond the control of the indi-
vidual, and differs with the individual
do with these manifestations, as has the
pleasure or pain, or excessive emotion of
any kind, often produces pallor in per-
sons healthy or unhealthy. Again, these
same emotions, or any one of them,
may be habitually displayed by great
redness or flushing of the face. Or, as
if to make matters still more complex,
a person may pale at one time and blush
at another from identically the same
c. -,
these exhibitions of their emotions as to
be positive sources of misery. But
neither the blushing nor the paling, as
a rule, has any thing to do with the brav-
cry or covardice of the individual. Dur
ing the war remember the remarkable
effect Of a cannon ball passing within
an inch Of my Colonels head while he
was on horseback in the field. His
whole head and neck became as red as
q boiled lobster. AS broad rule it
might be said that pallor is more apt to
accompany intense emotion and blush
ing the milder emotion, but there can
be no cast-iron rule in the matter. AS a
rule I have observed that men going
into action for the first time usually
exhibit great pallor. On the other
hand, though, I have seen towards
shrink away from the fields in mortal
terror with faces red as beets or with
out exhibiting any signs of emotion
whatever. AS the soldier sees more
service and becomes more used to the
danger, the bloodshed and carnage of
the battlefield these scenes arouse in
him less intense emotions"
Herbert Spencer, in his principles of
Psychology" sums up these emotional
expressions as tho ''undirected overflow
of nerve force"
While it Is thus seen that psychology
lists and physiognomists and men of sci
entific research are agreed that the ex-
pressions of emotions do not manifest
themselves the same way in the same
| individuals the question as to the origin
of these forms Of expressions and their
various causes has not been so definitely
settled or so clearly defined. In the dis
cussion of this subject Charles Darwin,
the great evolutionist, gives some very
interesting data. In his Expressions
of Emotions in Man and Animals" he
says:
"The most striking case, though a
rare and abnormal one, which can be
adduced Of the direct influence Of the
nervous system when strongly affected,
on the body, is the loss of color in the
hair, which has occasionally been OBJ
J served after extreme terror or grief.
One authentic case has been recorded in
the case of a man brought out for exc
| cution, in which the change of color of
the hair was so rapid as to be percepti-
BILE to the eye.
another good case is that Of the
trembling of the muscles. Of
| all emotions fear notoriously Is the most
apt to produce trembling, but so do
often great joy and anger. remember
once seeing boy who had shot his first
snipe ON the wing, and his hands trem-
bled to such degree from delight that
he could not for some time reload his
gun"
An Old Lawsuit.
| The fmperial Court of Leipsic, which