Hairs of Human Eyebrows7.
As in the previous chapter I chose an open and plain field for the evidence bearing on the formation of whorls and the like, so here I turn to one still more clear for him who runs to read. In these days old men are of less account than in earlier and simpler times, but I claim to have found “a new use for old men” as I had almost thought of calling this chapter. In this somewhat neglected group we have an almost unlimited8 number of specimens9 for examina-tion, and in their eyebrows they furnish a valuable field for tracing some striking results of underlying10 muscular traction11.
Darwin made one of his few mistakes when he included among rudimentary and inherited structures48 those few long hairs which are often seen in the eyebrows of man, looking upon them as representatives of those found in some species of macacus and the chimpanzee. That great and modest man was, I am sure, not in the habit of making much use of the looking-glass—not more than women who, as we know, rarely do such a thing. But if he did
he would have observed in his own splendid frontal region and brows excellent examples of the phenomena12 which form the subject of this chapter. This I know, though I never saw him in the flesh, for it so happens that in the great volume published in the jubilee13 of The Origin, and called Darwin and Modern Science, two good photographs of him, at the ages of thirty-five and about seventy-one are reproduced. These both show, but the later one much more clearly, good examples of these long and not very ornamental14 aberrant15 hairs. Thirty-five years of arduous16 thought and work had told their tale on him and twisted from their normal paths the lengthening17 thickening hairs of his eyebrows.
Also, if he had looked a little beyond the eyebrows he would have seen some very deep wrinkles of the skin on his forehead and round his orbits. It is these two groups of facts, wrinkles and twisted, changed hairs of man’s eyebrows, which give the answer to the question “Can muscular action change the direction of hair in the individual?”
In 1903 I drew the attention of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland to these two groups of facts under the title “Notes on the Eyebrows of Man,” and presented some large drawings of individual elderly men of my acquaintance, and the present chapter is only an extension of that little piece of work.
No area of the mammalian skin is so useful and easy to follow as this in answering the present question, for though the previous chapter supplied part of the answer in a very fruitful field, the proof still remained one of “tremendous probability” and not more. But in the frontal and superciliary region of man there is complete proof of the truth of the affirmative answer, as I shall show.
Here again we must encounter our old friend the normal slope of hair. As I stated in 1903, “The normal arrangement of the hair on the eyebrows of a moderately hairy subject is as follows: in the middle line the hairs of the two sides tend to meet and form a somewhat confused group of hairs; passing away from the middle line the hairs assume a nearly sagittal direction, then become more sloped away, and a sharp change in the direction of the frontal and orbital streams brings the remaining hairs into that regular accurate arrangement of a united stream so characteristic of a hairy subject, and this passes along the superciliary ridge18 to the external angular process”—all of which can be seen at a glance by any one who looks closely enough, as with the eyes of a lover, for example, at the brows of a dark-haired maid or youth. In the young these hairs lie close to the skin, and with that very interesting group of persons we have no more to do here, except
for one piece of practical advice to them which they will find at the end of the present chapter.
Evidence from Artists.
More than one kind of evidence may be brought forward in this case, and I propose to “put in” a certain class of witness that not the most acute cross-examining counsel, Daniel O’Connell, Hawkins, or even Sergeant19 Buzfuz, can shake. I pity that young man or woman to-day who has not mended several holes in his education by reading the books of Dickens and Lever in editions illustrated20 by the immortal21 Phiz. If I do no more for him by this passage than induce him to mend such holes I shall have been of some use to his mind. For my part I look upon Phiz as far superior to Hogarth or Cruikshank in the fidelity22 to nature of his drawings of the faces of his numerous characters, especially the old men. Look through Dombey & Son, Bleak24 House, Pickwick Papers, Barnaby Rudge, Tom Burke, Jack25 Hinton, Harry26 Lorrequer, The O’Donohue, and, perhaps best of all for the illustrations, The Knight27 of Gwynne. Examine, with a lens if necessary, the delicate way in which Phiz shows the projecting hairs on the eyebrows of his many elderly men, and note at the same time the truth to scientific fact which he shows in his female characters, for only in the drawings of “Mrs. Gamp proposes a toast” and of Mrs. Pipchin in “Paul and Mrs. Pipchin,” and one or two doubtful instances, can I find that he represents even his elderly women with this feature of their eyebrow6 hairs. But see Captain Cuttle and Mr. Bunsby in “Solemn references to Mrs. Bunsby,” both with strongly-marked shelves of hair sticking out from the brows, Captain Cuttle in “The shadow in the little parlour,” one of the fat coachmen in “Mr. Weller and his friends drinking to Mr. Pell”—the sharp brush projecting from the brow of Bagnet in “Mr. Smallweed breaks the pipe of peace,” that of Vholes in “Attorney and Client, fortitude28 and impatience”—(the equally remarkable29 absence of this feature in Pecksniff, Chadband and Skimpole, men without character or feeling)—Gashford in “Lord George Gordon,” the fat figure in “The Gallant31 Vintner,” Pioche in “Minette in attendance on Pioche,” the courtier in “Louis XIV. and de Genchy,” “The death of Shaun,” the blind man in “Joe the mighty32 hunter,” the right hand figure in “Mr. O’Leary creating a sensation,” Sir Archibald Mc’Nab in “A fireside group,” “Roade’s return to O’Donoughue Castle,” Sandy Mc’Grane and Old Hickman in “Sandy expedites the doctor,” Daly in “Daly bestows33 a helmet on Bully34 Dodd,” the knight in
“The Knight is taken Prisoner.”
Another witness to the scientific facts of the frequent presence of these hairs on the eyebrows of elderly men, and the rarity of them in those of women, is the dear friend of our youth, our friend even to hoar hairs, the Book of Nonsense, by Edward Lear. Here in 110 vivid drawings of several hundred characters, each of them sketched35 with a few bold strokes, is inscribed36 again and again this peculiar37 feature. Look at the “Old man with a nose,” the “Old Man of th’Abruzzi,” the “Old man of Melrose,” the “Old man of Calcutta,” the “Old Person of Anerley,” the “Old Person of Chester,” all with strange and striking bushes of long hairs standing38 out from their brows. Again see how hardly one of the female characters shows a trace of it even in that most truculent39 “Grandmother of the Young Person of Smyrna” who threatened to burn her, though her vertical40 wrinkles are formidable, or in the remarkable face of the wife of the “Old Man of Peru.” The “Old Lady of Prague” shows it in a moderate degree. Support of this kind may be trivial, and so will the opposing counsel say is that of a burglar’s finger-prints, but, qua evidence, it is as strong as that which commits the criminal to a prison on this modern proof. No one can suppose that Phiz and Lear fifty or sixty years ago had a prophetic and treacherous41 insight into the harmless labours of a man in the year 1920 who would exploit their labours to the advantage of his hypothesis, and that they faked their caricatures for such a purpose. This is the only alternative line for Sergeant Buzfuz to take unless he acknowledge the facts to be facts, and betake himself to abuse of the plaintiff’s attorney.
Eyebrows Interpreted by Wrinkles.
When one comes to the interpreta-tion of the curious shapes taken by these hairs one is not left to inference, for Nature has put some indelible stamps on the forehead and round the orbits of the men examined. These are wrinkles which have been long in prepara-tion and only begin to show themselves fully42 when the “evil days” have come, in the ’fifties, ’sixties and ’seventies.
I will describe the wrinkles first, and then their results, with examples, in the numerous fashions of the hairs. Wrinkles are of two kinds, pathological and physiological43, in other words the former are the results of degenera-tion and wasting of the subcutaneous fat and loss of its normal elasticity44, and are found in the faces of nearly all men and women, with advancing age, and they are the subject of much distress45 in the fair sex and a good deal of “beauty doctoring.” The latter are the result of long-continued and repeated action of certain small muscles. The former are
numerous, shallow and fine, the latter few and comparatively deep. The difference between elderly women and men in respect of the projecting hairs is not that men have many more physiological wrinkles, but that the hairs of women in this region do not stiffen46 and grow long nearly so much as those of men.
There are three groups of wrinkles found on the human forehead and face, vertical, arched or horizontal and orbital. This division of wrinkles is a natural one, for each group is produced by the action of different muscles, the vertical by the corrugator muscle, which is a narrow band passing from under the frontalis muscle inwards, where it is attached to the bone between the two eyebrows; the arched by the action of the frontalis muscle, one which moves the scalp and in doing so elevates the eyebrows; the orbital by the elliptic orbicularis muscle which closes the eyelids47. These muscles are shown in Fig30. 20.
Vertical wrinkles are found in the central region of the forehead and sometimes occupy the middle line with a deep furrow48, more often they are bilateral49 and symmetrical, near the inner fourth part of the eyebrow, and sometimes they are placed at different distances from the middle line.
Arched wrinkles extend over the forehead in a series of lines which are usually concentric with the curve of the eyebrows, but are sometimes nearly horizontal.
Orbital wrinkles may lie in a radiating plan all round the outer lower and inner borders of the orbit, and in some persons they are found lying over the curves of the orbicularis muscle itself.
Some Examples.
The variations in the long hairs of men’s eyebrows present some very singular tufts, and I have added below nine figures of certain cases examined and noted51 by myself, and these are, I hope, plain enough without any more detailed52 account than is given in the few words describing each.
Unless one’s attention be specially23 directed to these aberrant hairs, which are extremely common, one would not expect that hairs could be so variously twisted by muscular action beneath them. You may see a tuft of long hair projecting from the plane of the eyebrows towards the inner end, looking like a small horn, and I have measured individual hairs in elderly persons and found many an inch in length and a few an inch and a half. Such a tuft gives a fierce look to the countenance53 if the hairs are bushy and plentiful54. The celebrated55 Dr. Keate, the flogging Head of Eton, a fiery56 strenuous57 person, was noted for the extraordinary long
horn of thick hair in his eyebrows, which he appeared to use as a supplementary58 finger to point to this or that object of his terrifying attention. You may also see a man with a great drooping59 curtain of hairs overhanging his eyes, half hiding the upper lids and eyes. Another will show at the outer end of the eyebrows a bristling60 bush of hairs turning upwards61 in the aggressive manner of Wilhelm II. of evil memory, or of Mr. Roosevelt in former times. Again the outer points of the eyebrow hairs may turn downwards62 like a cavalry63 moustache, or the hairs may stand out at right angles as a level shelf. The fashions of these “orbital moustaches” appear to be as numerous as those of the upper lip.
A Conflict of Forces.
If the eyebrows are studied in the light of the three muscles displayed in Fig. 20 it is seen to contain an interesting congeries of small forces in conflict. (1) The frontalis moves the eyebrow directly upwards. I had a friend once about seventy years old who was a very vigorous, strong-willed man and he spoke64 with decision and energy. It was most interesting to watch how his frontalis muscle strongly and frequently contracted as he spoke and drew up his eyebrows so that one might, as it were, measure the strength of his expressed convictions by the rate of action of his frontalis muscle! (2) The corrugator draws the skin of the eyebrow inwards to the middle line thus acting65 at a right angle to the line of the frontalis. (3) The orbicularis in the upper part directly opposes the action of the frontalis and in the lower acts “on its own” in closing the lower lid. This little spot is a Hill 60, destroyed at the battle of Messines, and has been the scene of much fighting throughout life, and it bears abiding66 witness in the twists and curves of the long hairs to the severity of the struggles. These actions of the three contending muscles are involuntary and of a reflex character, and much employed in such habits as those of knitting the brows or in elevating or depressing them, all this being set going and controlled by cerebral67 action. Incidentally then the preponderance of one or more of these actions over others, as shown in the hair, is evidence, as far as it goes, of the disposi-tion and character of the possessor. So that between the wrinkles and the twisted hairs of his brow the elderly man, and less so the woman, carries about an engraved68 statement, for his friends or enemies to read, of his natural disposi-tion and his acquired habits, in a limited field—his written character!
Fig. 20.
Muscles surrounding orbit with lines of action. Left—muscles con-cerned in move-ments of parts round orbits. Right—lines of ac-tion of these muscles in-di-cated by arrows.
Fig. 21.—C. B. ?t 81.
Hairs: Thick and bushy eyebrows. At junc-tion of outer and middle third of each side the thick hairs turn abruptly69 down-wards in a tuft and cover the upper lid.
Wrinkles: Arched and lateral50 fairly well-marked, one very deep, cen-tral and ver-ti-cal wrinkle.
点击
收听单词发音
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1
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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3
bristles
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| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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4
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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8
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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9
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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traction
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| n.牵引；附着摩擦力 | |
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12
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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13
jubilee
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| n.周年纪念；欢乐 | |
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14
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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aberrant
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| adj.畸变的，异常的，脱离常轨的 | |
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arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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17
lengthening
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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20
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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21
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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23
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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24
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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25
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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26
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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29
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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bestows
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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45
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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47
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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49
bilateral
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| adj.双方的，两边的，两侧的 | |
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50
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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51
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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52
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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53
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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54
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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55
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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58
supplementary
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| adj.补充的，附加的 | |
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59
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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60
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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61
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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62
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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63
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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64
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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67
cerebral
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| adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的 | |
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68
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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