Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The nervous system and its functions / by Herbert Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![to consider tlie object under different conditions as to light. 2. Emotional action. The action of a voluntary muscle immediately determined by mental emotion^ without the intervention of the will. To this prin- ciple are attributable the ]jlay of the muscles which produces expression of countenance, and those bodily gestures and inarticulate cries which further minister to the unintentional outward ex- pression of feeling. The essential difference between reflex and emotional actions is that in the former no parts are involved beyond the cranio-spinal cord and nerve, and sensation is the constant excitant; while in the latter the impulse originally proceeds from the brain, and the sentient nerves are indirectly only concerned with it. Or in the former case the sentient nerve, the intermediate segment of origin, and the voluntary nerve, are implicated ; in the latter, the brain, the place of origin of the voluntary nerve, the voluntary nerve, form the chain of organs engaged. The features unbending into a smile at some humorous thought exemplify pure emotional action ; the brow contracted in anger combines voluntary action with the direct emotional impulse. The anguished look of acute pain and the cry of agony combine, perhaps, reflex action with the emotional; the expression of patient suffering and resignation is purely emotional. 3. Irritative action. Spasmodic action from pri-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21941841_0176.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
