a suffusion or redness of the cheeks, excited by a sense of shame, on account of consciousness of some failing or imperfection.

Blushing is supposed to be produced from a kind of consent or sympathy between several parts of the body, occasioned by the same nerve being extended to them all. Thus the fifth pair of nerves being branched from the brain to the eye, ear, muscles of the lips, cheeks, palate, tongue, and nose; a thing seen or heard that is shameful, affects the cheeks with blushes, driving the blood into the minute vessels thereof, at the same time that it affects the eye and ear. For the same reason it is, as Mr Derham observes, that a favours thing seen or smelt affects the glands and parts of the mouth: if a thing heard be pleasing, it affects the muscles of the face with laughter: if melancholy, it exerts itself on the glands of the eyes, and occasions weeping, &c. And to the same cause Dr Willis ascribes the pleasure of kissing.