111) on the action
of the _musculus superbus_.
Englishmen are much less demonstrative than the men of most other
European nations, and they shrug their shoulders far less frequently
and energetically than Frenchmen or Italians do. The gesture
varies in all degrees from the complex movement, just described,
to only a momentary and scarcely perceptible raising of both shoulders;
or, as I have noticed in a lady sitting in an arm-chair, to the mere
turning slightly outwards of the open hands with separated fingers.
I have never seen very young English children shrug their shoulders,
but the following case was observed with care by a medical professor
and excellent observer, and has been communicated to me by him.
The father of this gentleman was a Parisian, and his mother a Scotch lady.
His wife is of British extraction on both sides, and my informant
does not believe that she ever shrugged her shoulders in her life.
His children have been reared in England, and the nursemaid is a
thorough Englishwoman, who has never been seen to shrug her shoulders.
Now, his eldest daughter was observed to shrug her shoulders at the age
of between sixteen and eighteen months; her mother exclaiming at
the time, "Look at the little French girl shrugging her shoulders!"
At first she often acted thus, sometimes throwing her head a little
backwards and on one side, but she did not, as far as was observed,
move her elbows and hands in the usual manner.
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