LAUGHTER.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2073, 26 August 1875, Page 3

LAUGHTER.

■..-" There are probably more varieties of laughter than of any other human operation. The most notable is the roaring laugh, round, hearty,; and boisterous. There are also simpers, sniffY, titters, and snuffs, and guffaws. Steele arranges the several kinds of laughter undor the following heads :—•' Tho JDimplers,: the Smilers, the Laughters, the Grinners, and the Horse-Laughters. The dimple is practised to give grace to the features, and. is frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover.C This was called by the Ancients the Chain laugh. The Smile isfor the most part confined to the fair sex and their male retinue. It expresses our ■at^sfaction in a silent sort of approbation, and doth not too much disorder the features, and is practised by lovers of the most deligate address. This tender motion of physiognomy the Ancients called the lonic laugh.,. The laugh among us is the common risus of the Ancients. The Grin -by writers of antiquity is called the Syncrusian;. and was then, as it is at this time, made use of to display a beautiful „»et of. teeth, The Horse-laugh, or the sardonic, is made use of with great sue- : , cess in all kinds of disputations; The proficient in this, by a well-timed laugh, r ; will baffle the most solid argument. This upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received with great applause in coffee-house disputes; and that side the laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the better of his antagonist." Some men laugh in a, marvellously comical manner, whilst the sight alone of another man's face is the signal for general uproar. A third will set his whole face and body in niotion as though doubled'up with pain, and then bellow forth a huge volume of sound. A fourth jerks his head backwards like a Chinese toy, or sways his body to and fro like a pendulum, inwardly convulsed until his face is blue with emotion, when he. suddenly bursts ; forth like ; a roaring lion, continuing to keep up a series of spasmodic roars at intervals; or he thrusts his hands into his breeches pockets, shuts his eyes, wriggles about, throws himself into a chair, kicks out his .legs,, and finally collapses quite exhausted, with a face running like a wet ..blanket.,; The laugh of Teufelsdrock, as described by Carlyle, is an instance of , thiskind of immoderate-laughter. " Paul, -in his serious way, was giving one of those inimitable ' Extraharaugues,' and, as it chanced, on the proposal for a cast- - metal king :. gradually a>light kindled in our Professor's eyes and face, a beaming, mantling, loveliest light ;\throtigh those murky features,' a radiant, ever young Apollo, looked; and he burst forth like the neighing of all Tattersall's—tears streaming down his cheeks, pipe held aloof, feet clutched in the air—loud, longcontinuingi uncontrollable ; a laugh, not of the face and diaphragm, but of the whole wan from head to heel." It is a well-known fact that laughter conduces .to health, by accelerating circulation and forcing the venous blood through the lungs. Celcus, one of the oldest writers on medicine, recommended comic representations to his patients as a oure for their various ailments. The physicians of our own day are well aware of the beneficial results that follow when an invalid indulges in a good bona fide laugh. Sterne remarks upon this point: " I live in constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill-health and other evils of life, by mirth, being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles— but much more so when he laughs—it adds something to this fragment of life." Laughteris also conducive to .longevity ; and in this respect is similar to singing, reading and speaking aloud, which • strengthen and .invigorate the lungs.— Social Review.