to one of a feeble temperament will make up, in a measure, the deficiencies of the latter, and the fruit derived from such a union will be found satisfactory in the first generation, and, if the matrimonial association is continued according to this rule, at the second generation, progeny will then be sound. Thus the union of a lymphatic temperament with a dry, bilious temperament seems to be the best accouplement, to modify, or destroy, the scrofulous taint in one of the parties.

Les contraires se guérissent par les contraires. If this axiom were applied in matrimonial alliances, it would be found to be the only remedy efficacious to oppose hereditary diseases, which cause so much destruction in modern society. To a young girl of leucorrhoeic habits, and to another predisposed to phthisis, give husbands who are robust, sound, with a rich, sanguine temperament; to a young man who is weak, delicate, threatened with nervous affections, give a strong girl, of a rich organization, full of sap and health; then the result will be the extinction of morbid transmissionnay, more, a healthy progeny will appear, which can be perpetuated from one generation to another.

In view of these facts, families afflicted with hereditary diseases must see the necessity of enlarging the circle of their acquaintances, and even seek in other climates, if possible, husbands for their daughters and wives for their sons.

The leading branch of education for children af fected with hereditary diseases, such as scrofula, rachitis, malformation, etc., is medical gymnastics. It is astonishing to see the efficacy of a physical education in vicious organizations, when especially directed by physicians who make it a special study.

Not unlike the seeds of vegetables waiting for the

season assigned to them by the laws of Nature for ger mination, in the same manner does the germ of morbid transmission only wait, according to its nature, for the favorable age to show itself, and then strike its victim. Rachitism manifests itself during infancy; diseases of the heart and lungs, during youth; rheumatism, gout, calculi, uterine affections, hæmorrhoids, hypochondria, manias, etc., during middle age; finally, scirrhus, apoplexy, etc., follow. Predisposed individuals should scrupulously observe and submit to a prophylactic treatment, according as they draw near the age which should serve them as a warning, while they consider the record of their ancestry.

From the foregoing remarks, it is evident that no part of the physical and moral organization of man can escape hereditary transmission, and, moreover, the influence of this incomprehensible power perpetuates itself through several generations. In a social point of view, these facts deserve the utmost extent of publicity, because, were the knowledge of them more widely spread in the community, families would be less eager to seek after a name or a fortune than after the physical and moral qualities of man, which, after all, must constitute the only solid basis for health and real happiness in this world.

ART. IV.—Electro-Physiognomy. A Condensed Résu mé from the Work of M. Duchenne (de Boulogne). By M. L. EDGEWORTH, M. D.

THE muscles of the human face are not like those of our limbs, all and completely subject to the will, although they spontaneously and involuntarily contract

under the influence of emotions, and express these physiognomically by the lines and folds, the tensions or distentions of the skin which rounds our features. In the words of the distinguished electrician, to whose work we now invite attention,' "The soul alone, normally, enjoys the faculty of producing these expressions faithfully. They are, then, so fugitive that the greatest artists have not always succeeded in reproducing the ensemble of their distinctive traits."

All the expressions of which the face is susceptible, through the contraction of its muscles severally and combinedly, may be imitated, by their contractions as induced by the electric current. The orthog raphy of physiognomy, the anatomical rules of expression, whether voluntary or involuntary, may be deciphered by faradization, which is electro-magnetism localized by rheophores. It is said that Sir Charles Bell, and Sarlandière, employed galvanism in their physiognomical experiments. The "Philosophy of Expression" is, however, of later date than the work of Moreau de la Sarthe, a collaborator with Lavater, who had preoccupied the ground with immense talent of observation and anatomical intuition, and who, in great measure, anticipated Bell's conclusions.

M. Duchenne has photographed his faces at the moment when a certain muscle or muscles, in contracting under the rheophores of an electro-magnet, give a characteristic expression to the countenance.

A muscle, such as that which contracts the eyebrow, expressive by graduated moderate contractions of many degrees of suffering, ceases to be morally expressive at

1 Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine on analyse Electro-Physiologique de l'expression des Passions applicable à la Pratique des Arts Plastiques. Par le Docteur G. B. Duchenne (de Boulogne). Paris, 1862.

its most powerful contraction, or spasm, as under a flash of light. In repeating these experiments, we are admonished to graduate the current delicately, as each degree of intensity excites a corresponding contraction of the muscle upon which the rheophores direct it, and elicits corresponding shades of expression.

By coating the rheophores with wet buckskin, the current penetrates the muscle more directly.

A grimace, rather than a true physiognomic expres sion, is produced by the action of the current on the larger branches of the seventh pair, or motor nerve of the face, because too many muscles at once are thus excited. Grimaces are also produced by the simul taneous contractions of muscles which do not group or harmonize in a natural physiognomic expression.

Expressions induced upon one side of the face only, must produce the effect of grimaces, if we look at both sides of the face at once. The reader is, therefore, requested to conceal, as indicated, such or such a part of each of these photographs, while the opposite part is considered; then the expression of the face will be completely designed, and often become one of great beauty.

It is difficult to localize the action of the rheophores exactly, because the current often meets one or two motor branches repairing to a neighboring muscular fascicle; either when it is too intense, or from some anomaly in the nervous distribution. Thus, in the right side of Photograph 35, the current has excited the eyelid muscles slightly, at the same time with the great zygomatic.

Unless the face of the subject be insensible, as was that of an old man on whom M. Duchenne experimented, the operator should gently accustom it to the contact

of the rheophores before interpreting physiognomically the contractions witnessed. The natural expressions of pain, surprise, etc., will then cease to complicate the experiment.

"The female model photographed (Fig. 74) is a young woman nearly blind by atrophy of the papillæ of the optic nerves, and whose face had been frequently electrified during her treatment for this amaurosis. She cannot see the gestures or the attitudes in which I place her and drape her, just as if I were acting upon a manikin.

"To render more evident the modifying influence of a single expressive muscle over all the other features, I have often contrasted a voluntary expression on one side the face photographed, with an artificial expression, determined by electrical contraction, on the other side of it. In these electro-physiological studies, I give my subject an attitude and gesture in harmony with the physiognomic expressions which I wish to produce; then I ask her to execute the facial movements proper to these expressions, as I conceive them, but without any intervention of her feelings. Thus, I give such or such an attitude to the head, I cause her to turn her eyes in such or such a direction, to close or open the eyelids, to open the mouth more or less, to laugh, or smile, etc. So I obtain the expression such as I wish, such as I feel it ought to be, in so far as this is possible by the employment of those muscles which obey the will. All expressions cannot be thus produced, because the muscles essential to them do not even partially obey the will, but contract only under the reflex excitement of passions, or else under the influence of localized electrization. At the moment when the expression produced by the voluntary movements is