The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 Part 17

NATIONAL PHYSIOGNOMY. It is undeniable that there is a national physiognomy as well as national character. Compare a negro and an Englishman, a native of Lapland and an Italian, a Frenchman and an inhabitant of Tierra del Fuego. Examine their forms, countenances, characters, and minds. This difference will be easily seen, though it will sometimes be very difficult to describe it scientifically.

The following infinitely little is what I have hitherto observed in the foreigners with whom I have conversed.

I am least able to characterise the French, They have no traits so bold as the English, nor so minute as the Germans. I know them chiefly by their teeth and their laugh. The Italians I discover by the nose, small eyes, and projecting chin. The English by their foreheads and eyebrows.

The Dutch by the rotundity of their heads and the weakness of the hair.

The Germans by the angles and wrinkles round the eyes and in the cheeks.

The Russians by the snub nose and their light-coloured or black hair.

I shall now say a word concerning Englishmen in particular. Englishmen have the shortest and best-arched foreheads--that is to say, they are arched only upwards, and, towards the eyebrows, either gently recline or are rectilinear. They seldom have pointed, usually round, full noses.

Their lips are usually large, well defined, beautifully curved. Their chins are round and full. The outline of their faces is in general large, and they never have those numerous angles and wrinkles by which the Germans are so especially distinguished. Their complexion is fairer than that of the Germans.

All Englishwomen whom I have known personally, or by portrait, appear to be composed of marrow and nerve. They are inclined to be tall, slender, soft, and as distant from all that is harsh, rigorous, or stubborn as heaven is from earth.

The Swiss have generally no common physiognomy or national character, the aspect of fidelity excepted. They are as different from each other as nations the most remote.

THE PHYSIOGNOMICAL RELATION OF THE s.e.xES. Generally speaking, how much more pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affectionate, flexible, and patient is woman than man. The primary matter of which woman is const.i.tuted appears to account for this difference. All her organs are tender, yielding, easily wounded, sensible, and receptive; they are made for maternity and affection. Among a thousand women, there is hardly one without these feminine characteristics.

This tenderness and sensibility, the light texture of their fibres and organs, render them easy to tempt and to subdue, and yet their charms are more potent than the strength of man. Truly sensible of purity, beauty and symmetry, woman does not always take time to reflect on spiritual life, spiritual death, spiritual corruption.

The woman does not think profoundly; profound thought is the prerogative of the man; but women feel more. They rule with tender looks, tears, and sighs, but not with pa.s.sion and threats, unless they are monstrosities.

They are capable of the sweetest sensibility, the deepest emotion, the utmost humility, and ardent enthusiasm. In their faces are signs of sanct.i.ty which every man honours.

Owing to their extreme sensibility and their incapacity for accurate inquiry and firm decision, they may easily become fanatics.

The love of women, strong as it is, is very changeable; but their hatred is almost incurable, and is only to be overcome by persistent and artful flattery. Men usually see things as a whole, whereas women take more interest in details.

Women have less physical courage than men. Man hears the bursting thunders, views the destructive bolt with serene aspect, and stands erect amid the fearful majesty of the torrent. But woman trembles at the lightning and thunder, and seeks refuge in the arms of man.

Woman is formed for pity and religion; and a woman without religion is monstrous; and a woman who is a freethinker is more disgusting than a woman with a beard.

Woman is not a foundation on which to build. She is the gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble--the materials for building on the male foundation. She is the leaven, or, more expressly, she is oil to the vinegar of man. Man singly is but half a man, only half human--a king without a kingdom. Woman must rest upon the man, and man can be what he ought to be only in conjunction with the woman.

Some of the princ.i.p.al physiognomical contrasts may be summarised here.

Man is the most firm; woman the most flexible.

Man is the straightest; woman the most bending.

Man stands steadfast; woman gently retreats.

Man surveys and observes; woman glances and feels.

Man is serious; woman is gay.

Man is the tallest and broadest; woman the smallest and weakest.

Man is rough and hard; woman is smooth and soft.

Man is brown; woman is fair.

The hair of the man is strong and short; the hair of woman is pliant and long.

Man has most straight lines; woman most curved.

The countenance of man, taken in profile, is not so often perpendicular as that of woman.

FAMILY PHYSIOGNOMY. The resemblance between parents and children is very commonly remarkable. Family physiognomical resemblance is as undeniable as national physiognomical resemblance. To doubt this is to doubt what is self-evident.

When children, as they increase in years, visibly increase in their physical resemblance to their parents, we cannot doubt that resemblance in character also increases. Howsoever much the character of children may seem to differ from that of their parents, yet this difference will be found to be due to great difference in external circ.u.mstances.

JUSTUS VON LIEBIG

Animal Chemistry

Baron Freiherr Justus von Liebig, one of the most ill.u.s.trious chemists of his age, was born on May 12, 1803, at Darmstadt, Germany, the son of a drysalter. It was in his father's business that his interest in chemistry first awoke, and at fifteen he became an apothecary's a.s.sistant. Subsequently, he went to Erlangen, where he took his doctorate in 1822; and afterwards, in Paris, was admitted to the laboratory of Gay-Lussac as a private pupil. In 1824 he was appointed a teacher of chemistry in the University of Giessen in his native state. Here he lived for twenty-eight years a quiet life of incessant industry, while his fame spread throughout Europe. In 1845 he was raised to the hereditary rank of baron, and seven years later was appointed by the Bavarian government to the professorship of chemistry in the University of Munich. Here he died on April 18, 1873. The treatise on "Animal Chemistry, or Organic Chemistry in its Relations to Physiology and Pathology," published in 1842, sums up the results of Liebig's investigations into the immediate products of animal life. He was the first to demonstrate that the only source of animal heat is that produced by the oxidation of the tissues.

_I.--Chemical Needs of Life_

Animals, unlike plants, require highly organised atoms for nutriment; they can subsist only upon parts of an organism. All parts of the animal body are produced from the fluid circulating within its organism. A destruction of the animal body is constantly proceeding, every motion is the result of a transformation of its structure; every thought, every sensation is accompanied by a change in the composition of the substance of the brain. Food is applied either in the increase of the ma.s.s of a structure (nutrition) or in the replacement of a structure wasted (reproduction).

Equally important is the continual absorption of oxygen from the atmosphere. All vital activity results from the mutual action of the oxygen of the atmosphere and the elements of food. According to Lavoisier, an adult man takes into his system every year 827 lb. of oxygen, and yet he does not increase in weight. What, then, becomes of this oxygen?--for no part of it is again expired as oxygen. The carbon and hydrogen of certain parts of the body have entered into combination with the oxygen introduced through the lungs and through the skin, and have been given out in the form of carbonic acid and the vapour of water.

Now, an adult inspires 32-1/2 oz. of oxygen daily; this will convert the carbon of 24 lb. of blood (80 per cent. water) into carbonic acid. He must, therefore, take as much nutriment as will supply the daily loss.

And, in fact, it is found that he does so; for the average amount of carbon in the daily food of an adult man is 14 oz., which requires 37 oz. of oxygen for its conversion into carbonic acid. The amount of food necessary for the support of the animal body must be in direct ratio to the quant.i.ty of oxygen taken into the system. A bird deprived of food dies on the third day; while a serpent, which inspires a mere trace of oxygen, can live without food for three months. The number of respirations is less in a state of rest than in exercise, and the amount of food necessary in both conditions must vary also.

The capacity of the chest being a constant quant.i.ty, we inspire the same volume of air whether at the pole or at the equator; but the weight of air, and consequently of oxygen, varies with the temperature. Thus, an adult man takes into the system daily 46,000 cubic inches of oxygen, which, if the temperature be 77 F., weighs 32-1/2 oz., but when the temperature sinks to freezing-point will weigh 35 oz. It is obvious, also, that in an equal number of respirations we consume more oxygen at the level of the sea than on a mountain. The quant.i.ty of oxygen inspired and carbonic acid expired must, therefore, vary with the height of the barometer. In our climate the difference between summer and winter in the carbon expired, and therefore necessary for food, is as much as one-eighth.

_II.--The Cause of Animal Heat_

Now, the mutual action between the elements of food and the oxygen of the air is the source of animal heat.

This heat is wholly due to the combustion of the carbon and hydrogen in the food consumed. Animal heat exists only in those parts of the body through which arterial blood (and with it oxygen in solution) circulates; hair, wool, or feathers, do not possess an elevated temperature.

As animal heat depends upon respired oxygen, it will vary according to the respiratory apparatus of the animal. Thus the temperature of a child is 102 F., while that of an adult is 99-1/2 F. That of birds is higher than that of quadrupeds or that of fishes or amphibia, whose proper temperature is 3 F higher than the medium in which they live. All animals, strictly speaking, are warm-blooded; but in those only which possess lungs is their temperature quite independent of the surrounding medium. The temperature of the human body is the same in the torrid as in the frigid zone; but the colder the surrounding medium the greater the quant.i.ty of fuel necessary to maintain its heat.

The human body may be aptly compared to the furnace of a laboratory destined to effect certain operations. It signifies nothing what intermediate forms the food, or fuel, of the furnace may a.s.sume; it is finally converted into carbonic acid and water. But in order to sustain a fixed temperature in the furnace we must vary the quant.i.ty of fuel according to the external temperature.

In the animal body the food is the fuel; with a proper supply of oxygen we obtain the heat given out during its oxidation or combustion. In winter, when we take exercise in a cold atmosphere, and when consequently the amount of inspired oxygen increases, the necessity for food containing carbon and hydrogen increases in the same ratio; and by gratifying the appet.i.te thus excited, we obtain the most efficient protection against the most piercing cold. A starving man is soon frozen to death; and everyone knows that the animals of prey in the Arctic regions far exceed in voracity those in the torrid zone. In cold and temperate climates, the air, which incessantly strives to consume the body, urges man to laborious efforts in order to furnish the means of resistance to its action, while in hot climates the necessity of labour to provide food is far less urgent.

Our clothing is merely the equivalent for a certain amount of food.

The more warmly we are clothed the less food we require. If in hunting or fishing we were exposed to the same degree of cold as the Samoyedes we could with ease consume ten pounds of flesh, and perhaps half a dozen tallow candles into the bargain. The macaroni of the Italian, and the train oil of the Greenlander and the Russian, are fitted to administer to their comfort in the climate in which they have been born.

The whole process of respiration appears most clearly developed in the case of a man exposed to starvation. Currie mentions the case of an individual who was unable to swallow, and whose body lost 100 lb. in one month. The more fat an animal contains the longer will it be able to exist without food, for the fat will be consumed before the oxygen of the air acts upon the other parts of the body.