General therapeutics, or Principles of medical practice : with tables of the chief remedial agents and their preparations : and of the different poisons and their antidotes / by Robley Dunglison.

  • Dunglison, Robley, 1798-1869.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General therapeutics, or Principles of medical practice : with tables of the chief remedial agents and their preparations : and of the different poisons and their antidotes / by Robley Dunglison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    All these temperaments acquired their names from a fancied predominance of certain systems, which so tempered the differ- ent functions as to communicate certain evident characteristics. In a therapeutical consideration, they do not demand much at- tention, except perhaps so far as regards the two opposite—the sanguine, and the melancholic ; and perhaps the nervous. The first of these is presumed to be dependent upon a pre- dominance of the circulatory system; and hence is considered to be characterized by strong, frequent, and regular pulse ; rud- dy complexion; animated countenance; good shape, although distinctly marked ; firm flesh ; light hair; fair skin ; blue eyes ; nervous susceptibility, attended with rapid successibilitt as the French term it,—that is, a facility of being impressed by exter- nal objects, and of passing rapidly from one idea to another. On the other hand, in the melancholic temperament, the vital functions are considered to be more feebly or irregularly perform- ed ; the skin has a deeper hue; the countenance is sallow, or sad; the bowels are torpid, and all the excretions tardily ac- complished ; and the pulse is hard and habitually contracted. In the nervous temperament, again, the susceptibility of being acted upon by external impressions is unusually developed. It is characterized by small, soft, and, as it were, wasted muscles; and generally by a slender form, and great vividness of sen- sation. Such are the characters ordinarily assigned to these tempe- raments. Many of them are fallacious, and but few need be borne in mind in therapeutical investigations. As a general rule, it certainly would seem, that persons of strong sanguine characteristics have the nervous system more impressible; the body more predisposed to inflammatory action, and the vessels less protected by the tissues in which they creep, and hence they are more liable to obstructions, as well as to hemorrhage by rupture or transudation; and it is manifest that in such an organization antiphlogistics may be more demanded, and stim- ulants ought to be employed with more caution, than in the me- lancholic. Again, the possessor of the nervous temperament may demand modifications of management, both hygienically and therapeutically, which may not be suggested in those of any of the other temperaments. After all, however, we cannot deduce much instructive matter, for our practical guidance, from the study of this topic ; nor do I conceive, that the doctrine of the temperaments in any of its relations—physiological or psychological—hygienical or therapeutical—is worthy of the