Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/326

312 He is quick to anger, but soon forgets wrong; a word and a blow, and oftentimes the blow first, are the features of his wrath.

It is in medicine only that the temperaments have practical importance, if we reject Dr. Powell's new science. Sanguine people are prone to acute diseases of the inflammatory type. Apoplexy, diseases of the heart and blood-vessels, hæmorrhages, acute fevers, pneumonia, pleurisy, and closely-allied disorders, are the forms of disease generally met with. Dr. Southey assigns to this class the old idea of crises; that is, in febrile diseases, at certain times, there will be sudden losses of the fluids of the body spontaneously, by which the diseased action secures a new outlet, and this is followed by a rapid convalescence. These evacuations, if the temperament of the patient be understood, are never interfered with by the physician, as they are Nature's own efforts to throw off the disease. Rapid recovery, or a speedy fatal result, may generally be looked for among sanguine people. In this temperament the physical part of man reaches its most perfect expression; the body is here in even balance with the brain. Such a combination as that of persistent intellectual effort with a typical sanguine temperament is rare. Prof. John Wilson (Christopher North) is an example of this, and of which there is scarce another illustration in literature. This temperament, finding its purer expression in a near approach to human animalism, with soul and body adjusted and evenly poised, a happy mingling of mind and matter, must surely have been the type of the Miltonic man. The fancy cannot paint him other than this, and believe him capable of contending with the dangers, obstacles, and unrelenting hardships, of his life. Of this type have the sailors, colonists, soldiers, and explorers, generally been—all men who lead in the battle with Nature's obstacles.

In the lymphatic temperament we have a direct antithesis of the sanguine. Typically, the lymphatics are heavily framed, the limbs are clumsy and large-jointed, awkward and slow in movement. This is due to the thickness of the articular surfaces of the long bones, and this also explains the large wrists and ankles; the head is large, the face unanimated, thick-lipped, pale, and with large features, the expression listless and apathetic; the eyes are blue or gray, the hair white, blond, or light auburn, and abundant. The male figure is between five feet eight inches and six feet two inches in height, the female five feet six or nine inches high (Southey), and such are the proportions that a person of this temperament rarely meets the artistic ideal of human beauty. The texture of the flesh is soft and flabby, and generally abundant, the muscles small and slow in their development. Puberty is late in its advent; this is but a characteristic, however, of the slow and deliberate manner of the general development. Functions are slowly performed and not evenly balanced; the fluid secretions too abundant, the absorbents inactive