An attempt to establish physiognomy upon scientific principles.

  • Cross, John, 1790-1850.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to establish physiognomy upon scientific principles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    yet there is no fair logic in the inference that, if hunger were continued without any inter- missions of satiety, the appetites and faculties would also continue keen and strong. Hungry tigers and philosophers are very different from starved. But full generous diet, in order to be conducive to mental improvement, must not be carried beyond the digestive powers of the sto- mach. To overcharge the stomach is just to keep it in a continual state of satiety. A com- plete surfeit renders the mind almost vacant, and complete gluttons are for the most part complete idiots. Thus the food not only constitutes the mate- rials out of which the animal machine is con- structed, and the alimentary organ not only forms the great mould in which it is cast; but the food also forms the ammunition by which the movement of the machinery is effected, and the alimentary organ also gives residence to what shall afterwards give a spring and a spirit to the whole. But all this arrangement of matter into the size and configuration of an animal, could not have been accomplished by the food and the ali-