Lewis Powell's Jaw

[Houmes]

I would really like to know how severely the nerve damage would have affected the dynamics of his facial animation, since any peculiarities would have been very strong factors in how people characterized Lewis. Partial inability to move one side of the mouth is often quite pronounced in agitated, excited individuals, leading to increased spittle expulsion and a snarling, vicious appearance - if Lewis had such an inflection, he would have generated a certain amount of negative attention in such situations. Facial handicaps are also often initially viewed as signs of mental handicap and slow wit by many people, leading to the misconception that the individual might be primitive and retarded.

The actor Sylvester Stallone has a similar condition due to complications during his birth. The doctors had to apply forceps to his head and severed a nerve in the process. As a result, the lower left side of his face is paralyzed, including parts of his lip, tongue, and chin, which has given Stallone his snarling look and slightly slurred speech.



Sylvester Stallone's injury was different from the nerve affecting Mr. Powell. Stallone had a Facial nerve injury from either improperly placed or "rigorously used" obstetrical forceps. That's why many docs are now trained to use a vacuum extractor (one type looks very much like a toilet plunger) to the top of the baby's head during difficult deliveries. The Facial nerve injury is a whole different ballgame from an inferior alveolar nerve injury. Facial nerves control facial expressions, control of eating (classic example in adults is Bell's Palsy, where they have trouble keeping food in one side of the mouth, often drooling saliva) and have different degrees of facial paralysis with a facial droop. Find a copy of the one known image of William Seward after Powell's attack and that's a facial nerve injury. I would suspect Powell's healed jaw, since it appears to have a malformation in photographs of his skull and from life, gave him more problems than numbness of the skin.