Part 67

Mason Good has very justly observed that these temperaments, or generic constitutions, are perpetually running into each other, and consequently that not one of them, perhaps, is to be found in a state of full perfection in any individual; he further aids this remark by the following illustration: "Strictly speaking, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox belonged equally, in the main, to the second temperament; there was the same ardour, genius and comprehensive judgment in both, with a considerable tendency to the sanguineous, and hence with more irritability, but more self-confidence, audacity, and sanguine expectation: the latter, while possessing the same general or bilious temperament, was at the same time more strongly inclined to the lymphatic, and hence his increased corporeal bulk, and with less bold and ardent expectation he possessed one of the sweetest and most benevolent dispositions to be met with in the history of the world. The first was formed to be revered, the second to be beloved; both to be admired and immortalized."

I apprehend that a profound study of human temperaments and propensities may afford a more desirable guide in the education of youth, and the selection of men in the different concerns of life, than that of either physiognomy or phrenology; although the temperament must materially affect the general character of the countenance. Yet, from the apparent prevalence of any temperament we are not to form a rash and hasty judgment in regard to the future capacities or propensities of youth. As one temperament runs into another, and assumes a complex form, so can education regulate the one that naturally predominates, and modify it by a fusion with another. Thus, the restlessness of the bilious and choleric may be attuned to a phlegmatic state by the power of reason, and the brute courage and audacity of the sanguineous checked by inspiring sentiments of true valour. That every temperament, excepting perhaps the phlegmatic, is capable of displaying bravery, has been well described by Joanna Baillie in the following lines:

The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he whose noble soul its fear subdues, And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. As for your youth, whom blood and blows delight, Away with them!--there is not in their crew One valiant spirit.

SOLAR INFLUENCE.

While both ancient and modern physiologists were of opinion that the various phenomena of organized bodies were influenced by lunar phases, the power of the solar rays was not less active in regulating our functions both in health and in disease. The name of Phoebus signified the torch of life, and Apollo was the father of medicine and the fine arts. The sun was considered as a deity in most countries, the Supreme Being,--the father of light, Diespiter,--Jupiter, Jehovah, the creator of all living matter,--the residence of the Most High--In sole posuit tabernaculum suum, said the Psalmist;--and in Egypt three hundred and sixty-five priests were ordained to watch its heavenly movements during the year, while many philosophers attributed the propagation of the human race to the union of man with the orb of day. The disciples of Plato and Pythagoras considered it as possessing a soul; and Origenus, in his Periarchon, maintained that it displayed both virtues and vices,--an heretical doctrine very properly condemned by the second Synod of Constantinople; and, although St. Augustin was of that opinion, it was warmly combated by St. Basil and St. Ambrose, and many other beatified divines. Anaxagoras, on the contrary, considered this luminary to be a burning stone; Plato called it a compact fire; Aristotle maintained that it was formed of one-fifth of the elements that constitute the planets; Epicurus, a mass of lava, or ignited pumice-stone; Xenophon asserted that it was fed by exhalations, and Zeno by watery vapours; Empedocles considered it a translucent body; Philolaus, a concave mirror, concentrating the rays of light from every part of the universe to reflect it upon nature. Kepler was of a similar opinion, and further insisted that the sun was composed of a limpid fluid upon which a luminous aether was reflected, whence its centre was blue, while the limbs were yellow. A modern philosopher, Woodward, attempts to show that the sun and fixed stars are masses of electric fluid, requiring no alimentation, yielding no smoke, and the light that emanates from them offers the bluish brilliancy of the electric spark. It has been justly observed, that if, like Eudoxus, we endeavoured to approach this luminary, the better to study and describe its nature, we should still remain in impenetrable darkness,--in which I must leave the matter, to confine myself to those influences which experience seems to show that the sun actually exercises on the animal economy.

The genial and invigorating glow that moderate solar heat produces has ever been considered as tending to prolong our life. Hippocrates observed, that old men are double their age in winter, and younger in summer. To enjoy this reviving influence, the ancients had terraces on their house-tops called solaria, in which, to use their own expression, they took a solar air-bath. Pliny the younger, in speaking of his uncle, tells us, Post cibum, aestate, si quid otii, jacebat in sole. The ancients fancied that when the sun rose diseases declined, and Levato sole levatur morbus became a medical axiom. Aristotle records the case of an innkeeper of Tarentum, who, although able to attend to his business by day, became insane so soon as the sun had set. The moderns relate many similar instances of derangement brought on by the absence of solar influence. Bouillon mentions a woman who lost her senses at sunset, but who recovered them at break of day. Other cases are recorded of a different nature, when maladies were aggravated by this influence. Sauvage tells us of a woman who became maniacal whenever the sun was at its zenith; an influence that could not be prevented even by various stratagems, such as keeping her in a dark room, and deceiving her in regard to the hour. Humboldt knew a Spanish lady in Madrid who lost her voice the moment the sun dipped in the horizon, but the paralysis of the nerves of the tongue ceased the following morning. A removal to Naples cured this singular affection. Parham relates the cases of several individuals who were deprived of vision when the sun had set. In a former paper I have alluded to the effects of a vivid flood of light upon the Italian peasantry, as observed by Ramazzini. Daily practice shows us that the paroxysms of fever and various maladies are under a similar influence; and the evening gun in our garrisons is often the signal of severe exacerbation in certain febrile cases, while the reveillee develops acute aggravation in others. Sydenham and Floyer had observed that the gout and asthma were usually ushered in after our first sleep; and I have noticed that, during the prevalence of the cholera, the invasion of this fatal disorder generally occurred towards daybreak. The ancients divided their elementary predominance according to the diurnal cycle: thus, morning regulated the blood, noon the bile, evening the atrabile, and night the cold phlegmatic influence. Nor was this arrangement unnatural; we more or less observe it in a state of health, when man awakes refreshed and active at morn; towards noon his train of thoughts becomes more serious and busy; in the evening his mind is more gloomy and susceptible of unpleasant impressions; until night either sheds its poppies o'er his couch, or agitates his frame with its fearful dreams. The repose of night is ever more refreshing than that of day, however we may have changed the natural applications of our hours, and find, as Seneca said of Roman civilization, that antipodes habemus in urbe. The influence of night and day is equally observable in animals. Towards evening myriads of insects, who had shunned the solar heat, hum around us; while night calls forth its choristers; and as they cease to sing other creatures proclaim the dawn. Some animals, such as the simia beelzebud, and the simia seniculus, salute both the setting and the rising sun with fearful howls; and it may be considered as a law of nature, that we cannot turn night into day with impunity.

Dr. Balfour's opinion on the influence of the heavenly bodies is of great weight: he conceives that the influence of the sun and moon when in a state of conjunction, which he names solar-lunar influence, produces paroxysms or exacerbations in continued fever, in all cases at least where paroxysms are observable. As this influence declines in consequence of the gradual separation of these luminaries from each other, and their getting into a state of opposition, a way is left open for a critical and beneficial change; in other words, that paroxysms and exacerbations in fever may be expected to take place at spring-tides, and crises at neap-tides.

It has been observed in intermitting fevers, that paroxysms of the quotidian recur in the morning, the tertian at noon, and the quartan in the afternoon; in no instance do they take place at night.

There can be no doubt that lunation, more especially in tropical climes, influences diseases; but the effects of insolation are every where observable. One of the most serious accidents resulting from this exposure is the ictus solis, the coup de soleil of the French, and the [Greek: siriasis] of the Greeks, from the star Sirius, to whose influence they attributed the scorching heat of the dog-days. This attack is in general sudden, and the patient falls down as if struck with a blow on the head. Troops on a march, and labourers in the field, frequently are the victims of this solar power, which usually kills them on the spot. It has been known to destroy great numbers. In Pekin, from the 14th of July to the 25th, in the year 1743, it is related that eleven thousand persons were struck dead. On a hot day's march in Portugal, I lost six men in a brigade under my charge. They first reeled as if under the influence of liquor, and then fell dead with a slight convulsive struggle. One of them, the batman of the paymaster of the 3rd foot, or Buffs, was struck dead while speaking to me. A great number of greyhounds perished on the same march; but no other species of dog seemed to suffer, although we had many pointers and spaniels with us. Horses, mules, and cattle were also exempt from the attack, though it proved fatal to some weak donkeys who were following the troops. The shakos worn by our army are well calculated to preserve the soldier from these accidents, to which troops are constantly exposed during summer operations.

SWEATING FEVER.

This disastrous pestilence, which proved, if possible, more fatal and terrific than the cholera, made its first appearance in London, in 1480 or 1483, first showing itself in the army of Henry VII. on his landing at Milford Haven. In London it only broke out a year or two after, and visited that capital occasionally for upwards of forty years. It then spread to Holland, Germany, Belgium, Flanders, France, Denmark, and Norway, where it continued its ravages from 1525 to 1530; it then returned to England, and was observed for the last time in 1551.

Dr. Caius calls it a pestilential fever of one day; and it prevailed, he says, with a mighty slaughter, and the description of it was as tremendous as that of the plague of Athens. Dr. Willis states that its malignity was so extreme, that as soon as it entered a city it made a daily attack on five or six hundred persons, of whom scarcely one in a hundred recovered. This malignant fever ran its course in a single paroxysm; and the cold fit and hot fit were equally fatal. If the patient was fortunate enough to reach the sweating stage, he was in general saved. It commenced its attack with a pain in the muscles of the neck, shoulders, legs, and arms, through which a warm aura seemed to creep; after these symptoms a profuse perspiration broke forth. The internal organs grew gradually hot and burning, the pungent heat extending to the extremities; with an intolerable thirst, sickness soon followed by jactitation, coma, and delirium. At Shrewsbury it raged for seven months, and carried off upwards of one thousand patients. The invasion of this terrific disorder was generally preceded by a thick noisome fog, especially in Shropshire. A dark cloud usually took the lead, and the distemper followed its course. It is somewhat singular, but most fatal contagions have been ushered in, both in ancient and modern times, by noxious fogs or mists, with clouds of various insects, either bending their course in innumerable bodies, covering vegetation, or falling in dead heaps upon the ground. The disease was generally supposed to arise from inclement seasons and injured grain; particularly wheat infested with the mildew or smut, or rye attacked with the spur. It was observed by Dr. Willan, that the contemporary inhabitants of Scotland and Wales, who fed on barley and oats, were not affected.

One of the most singular features of this malady was its only attacking the English. Foreigners, and even the Scotch and Irish, in England, seemed to be exempted from this scourge, which attacked the monarch himself, and two Dukes of Suffolk, who sunk under its virulence. In Westminster the number of daily deaths averaged one hundred and twenty. It may be easily imagined that this special liability of Englishmen to contract the disease was attributed to Divine wrath for their manifold offences; and we find the following lines in Phemtophius:

Coelestia numina nobis Nil sunt quam nugae, fabula, verba, jocus: Inde fames nobis, pestes, Mars; denique fontem Hinc etiam inclemens [Greek: idoonretos] habet, Saevum, horrendum, atrox genus immedicabile morbi, Nostrae perfidiae debitum.

Dr. Armstrong has also recorded this peculiar visitation in the following:

Some, sad at home, and, in the desert, some, Abjur'd the fatal commerce of mankind. In vain: where'er they fled, the Fates pursued. Others, with hopes more specious, cross'd the main, To seek protection in far distant skies; But none they found. It seemed, the general air From pole to pole, from Atlas to the East, Was then at enmity with English blood; For, but the race of England, all were safe In foreign climes; nor did this Fury taste The foreign blood which England then contained.

That the atmosphere was saturated by this disease was obvious from the circumstance of vast numbers of birds falling dead, when, upon examination, pestilential swellings were found under their wings. Schiller attributed the disease to sideral influence. England, however, was not the only country where the wrath of Heaven was considered as having fulminated this scourge! and at Marburg it had such an effect, that it actually put an end to the violent disputes between Luther and Zuingle concerning the Eucharist, and which were on the eve of kindling a religious war.

A disease somewhat similar manifested itself in Picardy in 1773, having first appeared at Hardivilliers, five leagues from Beauvais; but, instead of terminating in a single day, it ran on to the third, fifth, and seventh: a fever of the same description was also observed in Gascony.

But of all the maladies that affect cutaneous transpiration, diapedesis, or sweating of blood, is the most singular; so much so, indeed, that its existence has been doubted, although several well authenticated cases are on record, both in the ancient and modern annals of medicine. It is mentioned by Theophrastus and Aristotle, while Lucan thus describes it:

Sic omnia membra Emisere simul rutilum pro sanguine virus. Sanguis erant lacrymae; quacumque foramina novit Humor, ab his largus manat cruor: ora redundant, Et patulae nares; sudor rubet; omnia plenis Membra fluunt venis: totum est pro vulnere corpus.

The detestable Charles IX. of France sunk under this disorder, thus described by Mezeray: "La nature fit d'etranges efforts pendant les deux dernieres semaines de la vie de ce Roi. Il s'agitait et se remuait sans cesse; le sang lui rejalliait par les pores et par tous les conduits de son corps. Apres avoir longtems souffert, il tomba dans une extreme faiblesse et rendit l'ame." The same historian relates the case of a governor of a town taken by storm, who was condemned to die, but was seized with a profuse sweating of blood the moment he beheld the scaffold. Lombard mentions a general who was affected in a similar manner on losing a battle. The same writer tells us of a nun who was so terrified when falling into the hands of a ruthless banditti, that blood oozed from every pore. Henry ab Heer records the case of a man who not only laboured under diapedesis, but small worms accompanied the bloody secretion.

In the Memoirs of the Society of Arts of Haarlem, we read of the case of a sailor, who, falling down during a storm, was raised from the deck streaming with blood. At first it was supposed that he had been wounded, but, on close examination, the blood was found to flow from the surface of the body. Fabricius de Hilden mentions a case that came under the observation of his friend Sporlinus, a physician of Bale; the patient was a child of twelve years of age, who never drank any thing but water: having gone out into the fields to bring home his father's flocks, he stopped upon the road, and contrary to habit, drank freely of white wine. He shortly after was seized with fever. His gums first began to bleed, and soon after an haemorrhage broke out from every part of the integuments, and from the nose. On the eighth day of the malady he was in a state of extreme debility, and the body was covered with livid and purple spots, while every part from whence the blood had exuded was stopped with clots. A case is also related of a widow of forty-five years of age, who had lost her only son. She one day fancied that she beheld his apparition beseeching her to relieve him from purgatory by her prayers, and by fasting every Friday. The following Friday, in the month of August, a perspiration tinged with blood broke out. For five successive Fridays the same phenomenon appeared, when a confirmed diapedesis appeared. The blood escaped from the upper part of the body, the back of the head, the temples, the eyes, nose, the breast, and the tips of the fingers. The disorder disappeared spontaneously on Friday the 8th of March of the following year. This affection was evidently occasioned by superstitious fears; and this appears the more probable from the periodicity of the attacks. The first invasion of the disease might have been purely accidental; but the regularity of its subsequent appearance on the stated day of the vision may be attributed to the influence of apprehension. Bartholinus mentions cases of bloody sweat taking place during vehement terror and the agonies of torture.

The case of Catherine Merlin, of Chamberg, is well authenticated, and worthy of being recorded. She was a woman of forty-six years of age, strong and hale. She received a kick from a bullock in the epigastric region, that was followed by vomiting of blood: this discharge having been suddenly stopped by her medical attendants, the blood made its way through the pores of various parts of her body, every limb being affected in turn. The sanguineous discharge was invariably preceded by a prickly and itching sensation; frequently this itching exudation proceeded from the scalp. The discharge usually occurred twice in the twenty-four hours; and on pressing the skin, the flow of blood could be accelerated and increased.

Dr. Fournier relates the case of a magistrate who was attacked with diapedesis after any excitement, whether of a pleasurable or a painful nature.

A singular idiosyncrasy was transmitted to her male children by an American Female named Smith, occasioning a severe haemorrhage wherever the skin was slightly pricked or scratched. This loss of blood would sometimes continue for several days. Several of her sons sunk under the affection, which was found at last to yield to the sulphate of soda. What is most singular, all her daughters were exempted from this fearful predisposition.

It is probable that this strange disorder arises from a violent commotion of the nervous system, turning the streams of blood out of their natural course, and forcing the red particles into the cutaneous excretories. A mere relaxation of the fibres could not produce so powerful a revulsion. It may also arise in cases of extreme debility in connexion with a thinner condition of the blood.

Curious cases are recorded of a sandy sweat, in which the perspiration becomes crystallized on the surface of the skin. Bartholinus, Schunig, and Mollenbroek have related several cases of the kind. It is probable, as Mason Good observes, that this morbid secretion may arise from an excess of uric acid, translated from the kidneys to the skin; this sand is generally of the same red colour as that of the renal secretions deposited in a lateritious sediment.

Scented perspiration is another singular peculiarity. This odour, frequently unpleasant, has also been known to shed an agreeable aroma, compared to the perfume of violets, roses, and musk. This quality is common in various animals; in the Simia jacchus, hedgehogs, hares, serpents, and crocodiles. The Viverra zibetha and V. civetta yield this odour abundantly; and it has been observed in a faint degree in our domestic cat. Many insects exhale an agreeable odour; especially the Cerambix moschatus, the Apis fragrans, the Tipula mochifera. The Cerambix suaveolens emits a delicious smell of roses, and the Petiolated sphex a highly fragrant balsamic ether. In the Memoirs of the Queen of Navarre, we read that Catherine de Medicis was a perfect nosegay; and Cujacius and Lord Herbert of Cherbury were equally distinguished by the suavity of their transpiration.