The common form of indisposition is bilious disorder, headache, loss of appetite, nausea, bile upon the stomach, supervening upon slight causes, physical or mental. The constitutional stamina are strong, and not easily exhausted. Depletion by bleeding is not prejudicial; but the effect required is generally obtained by a moderate abstraction of blood. The character naturally grave, and although strong, yet without elasticity, is liable to fall into melancholy.

There are two varieties of the bilious temperament, which I am induced to mention from the familiarity of the terms which express them. Neither, however, as I shall define them, are frequent varieties in this country. One is the choleric, the other the melancholic temperament. The former combines with the bilious, a larger dose of the nervous temperament; the latter, of the sanguine. The former, with a complexion like the bilious, displays greater irritability and less strength of fibre. The latter, distinguished by a complexion darker but fresher, the veins large, the pulse strong but slow, is characterized by its capability of physical endurance, and by the mental energy frequently coexisting with it.

5. The nervous temperament. The sanguine, the phlegmatic, the bilious temperaments, are distinguishable by external appearance; and if the mixed or equal temperament is not equally salient, it requires no length of observation to determine its existence by outward physical signs alone. The marks of the nervous temperament are less constant and obvious.

This temperament, the offspring at once and parent of refinement, is a modification of each or either of the rest, as the mixed consists of the predominant characteristics of the other four, attempered and subdued. The nervous temperament commonly presents the general outward habitudes of the mixed, next in frequency of the sanguine, mingling with each an air of delicacy and grace not its own, joined with a high tone of feeling, often uniting a natural justness of perception.

The circulation in persons of the nervous temperament is easily excitable, but wants power. The pulse is generally frequent, without strength: the action of the heart is unequal, and easily affected by accidental circumstances. The strength and weakness of such persons equally appear greater than they are. The tendency of this temperament is to exhaust itself, and to use its resources with waste of nervous power.

Lowering such a temperament by depletion is injurious. A remark, which is of the more importance, that the state to which the nervous temperament is reduced, when overwrought, often closely resembles threatenings of disease in vital organs, that in other temperaments are relieved by bleeding. The importance of the occasion leads me to give instances in exemplification of what I have advanced.

A gentleman with whom I am acquainted, an eminent diplomatist, is of the nervous temperament. He suffered some years ago with palpitation of the heart,

which was nervous. A physician, who is now deceased, attended him, and ordered him to be bled on two or three occasions ;-the treatment rendered him worse, and a different plan was adopted. His physician afterwards advised him, whatever he did on the recurrence of these symptoms, not to be again bled.

Another gentleman, who displays a mixed temperament, but with a predominance of the nervous, told me, that when about the middle period of life, and otherwise in health, he became subject to nervous feelings, the most serious of which gave him the idea of imminent dissolution. He would occasionally wake in alarm with this impression, the feeling producing which, was liable to recur during the day. Dr. Baillie advised him not to mind these sensations, which resulted from temperament, and which, as he advanced in life, would leave him. They have done so.

Another gentleman, of the same temperament, who has sought my advice, on exceeding his strength by combining mental exertion and excitement with indulgence in the pleasures of the table, became the subject of the following symptoms:-During the fore-part of the day, his vision was occasionally uncertain, as if the scene he looked upon was unreal; and in walking, he experienced a sense of insecurity and unsteadiness; stimulants temporarily removed these feelings, and quiet and abstemiousness cured them. At the worst, these symptoms were combined with every form of visual disturbance. Sometimes he only saw the right

half, sometimes the left half only of objects; and this with both eyes; sometimes the centre only of objects, sometimes their circumference alone.

The nervous temperament in women is the source of hysteria with all the variety of feature which it presents; whether that of shrieking, and sobbing, and difficulty of respiration, or temporary insensibility, or blindness, which will last for months, or spasmodic contraction of a single joint, or pain and tenderness and awkward motion of a joint, or numbness and weakness of the limbs,-the hip and knee-joints, and the legs, being the parts commonly affected, often with the most delusive character of structural disease.

The nervous temperament gives rise to a form of melancholy, a case of which I may mention in concluding these observations. It arose in a lowered tone of the nerves, and was cured by tonics. The lady, who was latterly under my own care, is now perfectly well.

At the age of sixteen, she became liable to what she termed blind headaches. These seizures began with indistinct vision of the middle of objects; this partial blindness would last half an hour, and then go off, leaving intolerable pain at the top of the head. At the age of thirty-five, she gradually fell into depression of spirits, and terrors of she knew not what, and impulses towards ridiculous and extravagant actions, which she felt barely capable of resisting. When these impressions were not upon her, she was a high-spirited, intelligent woman. The remedies which

had been tried were blisters, cupping, and aperient medicine. These means lowered her strength, and increased the depression of her spirits. The treatment which restored her, was a nourishing diet and tonics; and of tonics principally the carbonate of iron, which had the most remarkable effect, as I ascertained to a demonstration, by alternately intermitting the remedy, and by lessening and increasing the dose.

If one should attempt to describe the prevailing features of the inhabitants of the continent of Europe by the proportions which they display of the temperaments above described, the following, perhaps, might come near to their average of physical character.

The Italians, as compared with the English, are free from any share of the lymphatic temperament. Their olive or lurid complexion is based on the bilious or melancholic, with which their energetic feelings correspond; their quick sensibility and vivacity indicate a considerable participation in the nervous temperament.

The Spaniards have probably less of the nervous temperament, while in other respects they agree with the Italians.

The Germans, with their inertia of industry, and extraordinary capacity of application, reflective, imaginative, rather than of deep or quick sensibility, exhibit in their minds, as in their persons, the conjunction of the lymphatic and sanguineous tempera

ments.

The Dutch present the nearest approach to the