"Constriction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... increases, or is suspended. Or else it is the secretion of the saliva or of the sweat, which flows in abundance or dries up. Or the muscular force, which is increased or decays. Or the almost undefinable organic troubles revealed to us by the singing in the ears, constriction of the epigastrium, the jerks, the trembling, vertigo, or nausea—all this collection of organic troubles which comes more or less confusedly to our consciousness under the form of tactile, muscular, thermal, and other sensations. Until now this category of phenomena has been somewhat ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... one or two points where he clearly hoped for a word, and she was unable to thank him when he had finished. In this silence a curious constriction came into his throat. It was almost as if he had put his passion into definite words, and as the light fell upon her he perceived that her bosom was ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... upon the words. For a moment—one sickening, awful moment—his lips were pressed upon hers, seeming to draw all the breath—the very life itself—out of her quivering body. Then there came a terrible sound—a rending sound like the tearing of dry wood—and the dreadful constriction of his hold was gone. She burst from it, gasping for air and freedom with the agonized relief of one who has barely escaped suffocation. She sprang for the door though her knees were doubling under her. She reached it, and threw it wide. Then she looked ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... taper to a point. I examined the bases of several, making sections of them, but no trace of the entrance of any vessel could be seen. The apex is sometimes bifid or even trifid, owing to a slight separation between the terminal pointed cells. Towards the base there is constriction, formed of broader cells, beneath which there is an articulation, supported on an enlarged base, consisting of differently shaped polygonal cells. As the filaments project at right angles to the surface of the leaf, they would have ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... Their spirit drags no pack. Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache. Having seen all things red, Their eyes are rid Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever. And terror's first constriction over, Their hearts remain small drawn. Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle Now long since ironed, Can ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... an original sort of cove," said Bashville, complying. But instead of throwing his man, he found himself wedged into a collar formed by Cashel's arms, the least constriction of which would have strangled him. Cashel again roared with laughter as ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... themselves to find an explanation for this apparent breach of the laws of gravity. The intestinal canal is a tube with various dilatations and constrictions, but at no spot except the pylorus does the constriction completely obliterate the lumen of the tube, and here only periodically. It is perfectly evident, then, that, unless some system of trap exists in the canal, gases are free to travel from below ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... part of the body, become weakened when not used. The chest cavity enlarges during inspiration, but this enlargement is prevented if there is constriction of the lower ribs and the waist. The normal breathing is abdominal. Such breathing is health-imparting. It massages the liver gently with each breath and is mildly tonic to the stomach and the bowels. It truly gives internal exercise. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... thought of 'grinning for joy' from my companion's remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon [in Wales, in the summer of 1794], and were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me: 'You grinned like an idiot.' He had done the same." To "grin" was originally to snarl and show the teeth as animals do when angry. "They go to and fro in the evening: they ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... swung along upon the trail he felt the beginning of the suffocating constriction about his throat, the cold sweat under the brim of his hat, the old, shameful, dreaded sinking of his heart as it went down, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... 4 it will be seen that the cavity of the body has three openings, one on either side at the top going to the Fallopian tubes, and an opening at the bottom passing into the cavity of the neck. A constriction exists between these two cavities; but after childbirth this is largely done away with, and there is not that marked ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... a sudden constriction about his throat. He realized an impending crisis; the door above had been closed; by the sound he knew that the ladder was now removed and laid upon the ground. He had an idea—he could see naught—that the unknown invisible man had seated himself on the ladder on the ground, where he remained ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the pileus or cap. The gills, which occupy its lower surface, consist of parallel plates, bearing naked sporules over their whole surface. Some of the cells, which are visible by the microscope, produce four small cells at their free summit, apparently by germination and constriction. These are the sporules, and this is ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... pressed in against the land by the trade winds, is narrowed, and therefore acquires at once a swifter flow, the increased speed being due to conditions like those which add to the velocity of the water flowing through a hose when it comes to the constriction of the nozzle. Attaining the line of the southeastern or Lesser Antilles, often known as the Windward Islands, a part of this current slips through the interspaces between these isles and enters the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... are some cases of great constriction of the uterine canal which have reflex irritability in the stomach. Those having the stomach affected cannot take food, the least thing is rejected. It is best for such to remain quiet in bed, applying heat to the stomach and abdomen ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... that a spasmodic constriction of the smaller vessels took place, and have thus accounted for their resistance to the force of the heart. But there seems no necessity to introduce this imaginary spasm; since those, who are conversant in injecting bodies, find it necessary first ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... racing is particularly bad, especially the 4-mile row. Such severe exertion of course increases the blood pressure, even in these athletes, and the heart increases its speed. There is then exhilaration, later discomfort, and soon, as McKenzie points out, a sensation of constriction in the chest and head. This is soon followed by breathlessness, and soon by a feeling of fulness in the head, and then syncope. The heart, of course, becomes dilated. Heart murmurs are often found after much less severe exertion than boat racing. They may not ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... at the fool's simplicity; and, having plenty of time to indulge his facetious humour, he gravely installed himself upon the perch indicated, and shutting his eyes, counterfeited a profound slumber. He was aroused soon after by a sharp constriction of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... silence succeeded. The hard breathing of many men was audible in the room. Little cold drops sprang out in front of Evan's ears. A horrible constriction fastened on his breast, so that ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... depends upon your courage and generosity, the measure in which you give yourself to its embrace. Those minds which set a limit to their self-donation must feel as they attain it, not a sense of satisfaction but a sense of constriction. It is useless to offer your spirit a garden—even a garden inhabited by saints and angels—and pretend that it has been made free of the universe. You will not have peace until you do away with all banks and hedges, and exchange the garden for the wilderness that is unwalled; that wild strange ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... however, multiplied rapidly by fission. Sometimes a transverse constriction appeared; the hinder half developed a new cilium, and the hinder cilium gradually split from its base to its free end, until it was divided into two; a process which, considering the fact that this fine filament cannot ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... perfect ease, a portion of the lungs is not filled with air, and thus the full purification of the blood is prevented. This movement of the lungs, when they are fully inflated, increases the peristaltic movement of the stomach and bowels, and promotes digestion; any constriction of the waist tends to impede this important operation, and indigestion, with all its attendant evils, is ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... seem to show conclusively that the venous current did not come from the heart, and surgeons must have observed thousands of times the every-day phenomenon of congested veins at the distal extremity of a limb around which a ligature or constriction of any kind had been placed, and the simultaneous depletion of the vessels at the proximal points above the ligature. But it should be remembered that inductive science was in its infancy. This was the sixteenth, not the nineteenth century, and few men had learned to put implicit confidence ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... phimosis means "muzzling," and it is a term applied to a constriction or narrowing of the foreskin, so that the glands of the clitoris cannot be freely uncovered. This condition may give rise to an accumulation of smegma or secretion which may cause inflammation, itching, and nervous irritation. This in its turn may ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... up to their shoulders. Neither of them could really lean over, though Fay tried, in her eagerness to attract the attention of the little group. Jan watched her sister's face and again felt that cruel constriction of the throat that holds back tears. Fay's tired eyes were so sad, so out of keeping with the cheerful movement of her hand, so shadowed by some knowledge ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... encircled Jimmie's form and were slowly tightening in a python-like constriction that forced Jimmie's organs upward into his ribs and shut off his heart action. Again Jimmie recalled vividly his experiences in trying to break a "body scissors" on the mat, This time, however, he cast aside the ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... person; others were more properly golden stocks, or throat-bands, fitted so close as to produce in the spectator an unpleasant imagination (and in the wearer, as we learn from the Thalmud, VI. 43, until reconciled by use, an actual feeling) of constriction approaching to suffocation. Necklaces were, from the earliest times, a favorite ornament of the male sex in the East; and expressed the dignity of the wearer, as we see in the instances of Joseph, of Daniel, &c.; indeed the gold chain of office, still the badge of civic ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey |
