Excess of nutrition tends to plethora, to animal indulgence, and gross sensuality. Not only do the propensities rouse desire, but they excite the basilar faculties, and portray their wants in the outlines of the face, mould the features to their expression, and flash their significance from the eye. Who can mistake the picture of sensuality represented by Fig. 87? It is enough to shock the sensibility of a dumb animal, and to say that such a face has a beastly look, is an unkind reflection upon the brute creation. A large neck and corresponding development of the occipital half of the brain indicate nervous energy, yet nutrition is not absolutely dependent upon it, for the nutritive processes are active before a nervous system is formed. The lower faculties of the mind exert a remarkable influence over nutrition, secretion, and the molecular changes incident to life. Anger or fear may transmute the mother's nourishing milk into a virulent poison. The following incident, taken from Dr. Carpenter's Physiology, illustrates this statement: "A carpenter fell into a quarrel with a soldier billeted in his house, and was set-upon by the latter with his drawn sword. The wife of the carpenter at first trembled from fear and terror, and then suddenly threw herself between the combatants, wrested the sword from the soldier's hand, broke it in pieces, and threw it away. During the tumult, some neighbors came-in and separated the men. While in this state of strong excitement, the mother took up her child from the cradle, where it lay playing, and in the most perfect health, never having had a moment's illness; she gave it the breast, and in so doing sealed its fate. In a few minutes the infant left-off sucking, became restless, panted, and sank dead upon the mother's bosom. The physician who was instantly called-in, found the child lying in the cradle, as if asleep, and with its features undisturbed; but all resources were fruitless. It was irrecoverably gone. In this interesting case, the milk must have undergone a change, which gave it a powerful sedative action upon the susceptible nervous system of the infant."