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will be necessary for us to point out with as little elaboration as possible what change is produced in the whole mass of fluids, by the prevailing humours from which these temperaments take their names, and what effect this change has upon the body and mind.

1. In choleric constitutions, that is, in bodies abounding with yellow bile, the blood is hot and thin, circulates with great rapidity, disposes the body to inflammatory diseases, and the mind to a promptness and impetuosity in all its deliberations and actions. Persons of this constitution ought to avoid all occasions of dispute, strong liquors, violent exercise, and every thing by which they are apt to be over-heated.

2. Melancholic temperaments, are such as abound with a gross, earthy, austere humour, called by the ancients black bile. In these constitutions the blood is heavy and thick, moves slowly, disposes the body to glandular obstructions, and lowness of spirits; and the mind to fear and grief. To such persons a healthy air, moderate exercise, light food, a little good wine, which should be mixed with water for common drink, and cheerful company, are the best means to preserve health.

3. Phlegmatic constitutions are those where there is a large proportion of watery tenacious mucilage. Here the slimy blood circulates languidly, disposes the body to white swellings and dropsical disorders, and the mind to stupidity and indolence. In this constitution, a diet moderately attenuating, constant exercise, and some

warm gentle physic, at proper times, will keep off troublesome complaints.

4. The Sanguine constitution. Here there is no redundancy of bile or phlegm; the blood, except in cases of fulness from high living, or inanition from hæmorrhages, circulates freely and equally through all the vessels, which disposes the body to health and long life, and the mind to cheerfulness and benevolence. The principal care of such persons should be, by a moderate and prudent use of all the necessaries of life, to avoid the extremes of plenitude and voluptuousness, and every sort of intemperance which may injure a benign and healthy constitution.

It is not easy, in every instance, to distinguish these various constitutions; but a man capable of reflexion may, by observation and experience, discover the temperament of which he himself principally partakes ; consequently he may, by proper precautions, obviate any inconvenience apt to arise from it. And from what we have remarked relative to these temperaments, it will naturally follow,

First, that there can be no such thing invented by man as an universal remedy to prevent or cure all kinds of diseases; because that which would agree with the hot, must disagree with the cold. Besides, all such boasted specifics have been, by experience, found to be ineffectual, and every pretender to them has been convicted either of gross ignorance or dishonesty.

Secondly, we cannot from certainty vouch for any

particular kind of food, or medicine, that it will agree with this or that individual, until we are acquainted with his peculiar temperament; and, consequently, it is absurd to prescribe a method of diet or physic for any man without such previous knowledge.

It is not an unusual thing to hear people when any thing (or rather when nothing) is the matter with them, and where they think medical advice or attendance is necessary, say, "Send for Doctor So-and-so, (some wily apothecary who gets his daily bread by vending drugs, not an M.D.) he has attended me before (when nothing of any consequence was the matter with me), he knows my constitution, and knows better than any other person, &c." Yes, he knows so much of your constitution, that when he attends you for the gin-disease, Mrs. A, B, or C, you must drink no more till you get better. A quantum suff. of draughts must supersede Hodges's cordial, till he makes a little bill of two or three pounds for the good Mr. A, B, or C, to pay.

Dryden's practice was neither peculiar nor whimsical to the poet; he was of a full habit, and no doubt had often found, by experience, the beneficial effects, without being aware of the cause, which is nothing less than the reciprocal influence of mind and body! The simple fact is, indeed, connected with one of the most important inquiries in the history of man; the laws which regulate the invisible union of the soul with the body-in a word, the inscrutable mystery of our being, a secret, but undoubted intercourse, which must probably ever elude our perceptions.

The combination of metaphysics with physics, has only been productive of the wildest fairy tales among philosophers: with one party the soul seems to pass away in its last puff of air, while man seems to perish in "dust to dust;" the other, as successfully, gets rid of our bodies altogether, by denying the existence of matter. We are not certain that mind and matter are distinct existences, since the one may be only a modification of the other; however this great mystery be imagined, we shall find, with Dr. Gregory in his Lectures (on the Duties, &c. of a Physician), that it forms an equally necessary inquiry in the science of morals and of medicine.

When the vulgar distinctions of mind and body are considered as an union, or as a modified existence, no philosopher denies that a reciprocal action takes place between our moral and physical condition. Of these sympathies, like many other mysteries of nature, the cause remains occult, while the effects are obvious.

This close yet inscrutable association-this concealed correspondence of parts seemingly unconnected--in a word, this reciprocal influence of the mind and the body, has long fixed the attention of medical and metaphysical inquirers; the one having the care of our exterior organization, the other that of the interior. Can we conceive the mysterious inhabitant as forming a part of its own habitation? The tenant and the house are so inseparable, that, in striking at any part of the building, you inevitably reach the dweller. If the mind is disordered, we may often look for its seat in some corporeal derangement. Often are our thoughts disturbed by a stranger irritability, which we do not even pretend to account for. This state of the body, called the fidgets, is a disorder to which the ladies are particularly liable. A physician being earnestly asked by a female patient to give a name to her unknown complaints; this he found no difficulty to do, as he is a sturdy assertor of the materiality of our nature: he declared that her disorder was atmospherical. It was the disorder of her frame under damp weather, which was reacting on her mind; and physical means, by operating on her body, might be applied to restore her to her half-lost senses.

Our imagination is highest when our stomach is not overloaded; in spring than in winter; in solitude than amidst company; and in an obscure light than in the blaze and heat of noon. In all these cases the body is evidently acted on, and re-acts upon the mind. Sometimes our dreams present us with images of our rest

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