By physical culture and regulation of the habits, the excessive tendencies of this temperament may be restrained. Solid food should be substituted for a watery diet. If it be limited in quantity, this change will not only diminish the size, but increase the strength of the body. The body should be disciplined by daily percussion until the imperfectly constructed cells, which are too feeble to resist this treatment, are broken and replaced by those more hardy and enduring. Add to this treatment brisk, dry rubbing, calisthenic exercises, and daily walks, which should be gradually extended. Continue this treatment for three months, and its favorable effects upon the temperament will surprise the most skeptical; if continued for a year, a radical alteration will be effected, and the hardihood, health, and vigor of the constitution will be greatly increased.
This temperament may be improved physiologically, by being blended with the sanguine and volitive. The offspring will be stronger, the structures firmer, the organization more dense. Nutrition, assimilation, and all the constructive functions will be more energetic in weaving together the cellular fabric of the body. The sanguine temperament will add a stimulus to the organic activities, while the volitive will communicate manly, brave, and enduring qualities. When this temperament is united with the encephalic, if such a union does not result in barrenness, it adds expending and exhaustive tendencies to the enfeebling'ones already existing, and, consequently, the offspring lacks both physical power and intellectual activity.
The peculiarities of this temperament are observed in the diseases which characterize it. It is specially liable to derangements of digestion, nutrition, and blood-making. The blood is easily poisoned by morbid products formed within the body, as well as by those derived from the body of another. This is seen in pyæmia, produced by the introduction of decomposing pus, or "matter," into the blood. This condition is most likely to occur when the vital powers are low and the energies weak, for then the fibrin decreases, the red corpuscles diminish in number, the circulation becomes languid, the pulse grows fluttering and weak, and this increases until death ensues. An individual of this temperament is more easily destroyed than any other by the poison of syphilis, small-pox, and other contagious diseases. If the blood has received any hereditary taint, the lymphatic glands not only reproduce it but often increase the virulency of the original disease. This temperament indicates a necessity for the employment of stimulating, alterative, and antiseptic medicines. The torpid functions need arousing, the blood needs depuration, i.e., the elimination of corrupting matter, and the system requires alteratives to produce these salutary changes. The secretions need the correcting influence of cleansing remedies for the purification of the blood.
Persons of this temperament are more liable to absorption of morbid products within the body, which are in a state of decomposition, producing an infection of the blood, technically termed septicæmia. The fatal results which so suddenly follow child-bed fever are thus produced. This kind of poisoning sometimes takes place from the absorption of decomposed exudation in diphtheria, and, though rarely, from decomposing organic products collected in the lungs. Whenever the absorption of poison does take place, fatal consequences usually follow.
This passive temperament is more likely to sink under acute attacks of disease, especially alimentary disorders, such as diarrhea, dysentery, and cholera. It quickly succumbs to their prostrating effects, such as depression, congestion, and fatal collapse which rapidly succeed one another. Venesection and harsh purgatives are contra-indicated, and the physician who persists in their employment kills his patient. How grateful are warmth and stimulating medicines! The most powerful, diffusible, and nervous stimulants are required in cholera, when the system is devastated by the disease, as the plain is laid waste by the fierce tornado.
THE SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT.
Lymph is the characteristic of the lymphatic temperament, and its specific gravity, temperature, and standard of vitality are all lower than that of red blood. In the sanguine temperament all the vital functions are more active, the blood itself has a deeper hue, its corpuscles carry more oxygen, the complexion is quite florid, and the arterial currents impart to every faculty a more hopeful vigor. The blood-vessels are the most active absorbents, eagerly appropriating nutritive materials for the general circulation, while the respiration adds to it oxygen, that agent which makes vital manifestation possible. This temperament exhibits greater sensibility, the conceptions are quicker, the imagination more vivid, the appetite stronger, the passions more violent, and there is found every display of animal life and enjoyment.
A full development of the basilar faculties, indicated by an unusual breadth and depth of the base of the brain, accompanies this temperament. Its cerebral area includes the posterior and inferior portions of the cerebrum, the entire cerebellum, and that part of the medulla which connects with the spinal cord, all of which sustain intimate relations to vital conditions. Accordingly, such a development indicates good digestion, active nutrition, vigorous secretion, large heart and lungs, powerful muscles, and surplus vitality. The violent faculties, such as Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Hatred, are natural adjuncts, and their excess tends to sensuality and crime. They are not only secretive, appropriative, selfish, and self-defensive, but when redundant are aggressive and tend to destructiveness, the gratification of animal indulgence, intemperance, and debauchery. The correspondence between the cerebral conformation and the physical development is very obvious. Lower orders of animals possess these faculties, and their spontaneous exhibition is called instinct. They possess the acquisitive, destructive, and propagative propensities, which lead them to provide for their wants and secure to themselves a posterity. The exercise of their bodies causes a continual waste which demands incessant reparation, and they are governed measurably by these animal impulses.
All of these lower psychical faculties have a physiological significance. Acquisitiveness functionally expresses assimilation, accretion, animal growth, and tends to bodily repletion. Secretiveness expresses concealing, separating, withdrawing, and functionally signifies secretive action. Secretion is the separating and withdrawing from the blood some of its constituents, as mucus, bile, saliva, etc. This latter process indicates complex conditions of organization, so that the higher and more complex the tissue, the greater the number of secretory organs. Unrestrained selfishness, while it naturally conserves the individual interests, in its ultimate tendencies, is the very essence of human depravity. Without qualification, clearly, it is crime, for blind devotion to the individual must be in utter disregard for the good of others. The ultimate tendencies of these faculties are, therefore, criminal.