Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/409

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THE POSE OF THE BODY.
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the principle which applies in the case of the long skull applies similarly also in that of the broad skull although, in general, in somewhat less degree.

People who have broad heads with inverse angle of the face usually carry the head with the forehead thrown back and the chin elevated. Those who have this form of head and this consequent depression of the visual plane often suffer from the neuralgic or myalgic affections of the back of the head and the spinal region like the class with the long head and strong exterior facial angle. The differences need not be discussed here.

Directing our attention now to the excessive upward direction of the plane of vision which is found principally with the tall, or more correctly and technically, the mesocephalic head, we find not only a great difference in the adjustments of the facial muscles as compared with the class which we have just considered, but also in the poise of the body. In the class now to be considered the brows are compressed and the expression is one of intensity. The chin is not elevated as in the other class, but the forehead is advanced and the body leans forward. The shoulders bend forward and the chest is often compressed. With the noblest form of the head comes a stoop of the body. Fortunately for the world these people do not all have consumption, for if they did one of the highest forms of development of humanity would be wiped out. Unfortunately, however, it is from this class of people that consumption finds the great majority of its victims. Glance at the position of the air passages in these two portraits in each of which the habitual pose of the body and head is fairly represented.

Fig. 15.Fig. 16.

In the case of the one with the broad head and difficult upward rotations of the eyes (Fig. 15), a swarm of tubercle bacilli would pass in and out of the respiratory passages with much the same effect as any