Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/349

Rh anger being the type of the one and fear of the other. In anger the pulse becomes more frequent and the arterial tension may increase by a quarter of its amount (p. 176). The volume of the limbs augments in consequence of the afflux thither of blood (p. 178), and as a consequence of this irrigation the electric resistance diminishes (p. 180). In self-satisfaction, produced by suggestion in hypnotic subjects, the reaction-time was considerably shortened. In asthenic emotions all these symptoms are reversed. One of M. Féré's most interesting observations is relative to the rate of reduction of arterialized blood in various conditions. He finds it slower on the paralyzed side in hemiplegics, and slower in mental depression (hynotically suggested – p. 198). Connecting this change in the 'chiniotaxy' of the blood with certain observations by other authors and with experiments of his own on infection, he opens the way (pp. 264-7) to a possible explanation of the bad effects of depressing emotion on the vitality of the subject. The white blood-corpuscles are nowadays understood to protect the organism by devouring microbes. The shrunken peripheral blood-vessels in depressed states form an obstacle to the emigration of these corpuscles, and in pigeons and rabbits which he employed imbecile patients to frighten systematically, he found that poisonous inoculations were much more rapidly virulent than in unfrightened animals. Introducing under the skin of the two sets of creatures capillary tubes full of virulent cultures, he found them after twenty-four hours hardly altered in the frightened individuals, whereas in the others the microbes were mostly gone and the tubes filled with white corpuscles. – In the course of the book M. Féré gives a vast number of examples of nervous and other diseases dating from emotional shocks of a depressive kind, but is disposed to think that sudden joy, however disturbing its immediate effects may be, is never known to produce any protracted danger. – In Chapter V an account, in some respects minuter than that of other authors, of the physical 'expression' of various emotions is given. M. Féré has a mechanical theory, somewhat similar to that of Spencer, for explaining which muscles are most apt to be affected by emotion. They are, he says, those whose innervation is most frequently called into play in the course of ordinary function. The shortness of the nerves, and especially their thickness, and the vascularity of the parts also are determinants (p. 206). Thus the eye is the first organ to be affected in emotion. – The rest of the work may be best summarized by the heads of some of its chapters, as pathological and curative effects of emotions;