3 i 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



parts of the body. This is further shown in the unequal distribution 

 of the circulation, the head being often hot while the feet are cold, or 

 the extremities are cold while the body maintains a nearly febrile tem- 

 perature. The heart beats more rapidly than in other temperaments, 

 or is attended with nervous irregularity in its action. Functionally the 

 nervous temperament is liable to serious complications; the liver is 

 one of the organs more liable to acute derangement not, however, 

 in the direction of over but rather that of under action. Digestion 

 is a delicate function, the merest trifles interfering with its proper per- 

 formance. A leading trait of the nervous temperament is the mutual 

 reaction between it and the vital glandular functions ; thus sudden 

 mental or nervous impressions will upset the whole glandular ma- 

 chinery, or serious mental or nervous disturbances result from causes 

 acting in the opposite direction. 



If we were to select any one quality as the leading trait of the 

 mental constitution of this type, it would be the great emotional 

 tension. The emotions often usurp the place of higher faculties, and 

 reason, judgment, and the sense of right or wrong, are biased or re- 

 placed by emotional qualities. They have an acute sense of right 

 or wrong, but they are disposed to give it a personal rather than a 

 vicarious application. They have an extraordinary capacity for both 

 pleasure and misery, and the nervous man may be said to be under- 

 going one or the other through life, never knowing what it is to be in 

 the happy mean of negation. They are never contented with their 

 surroundings for any great length of time, but chafe and fret against 

 their fate, no matter how happy it may seem. They have great fixity 

 of opinion, and but little respect for that of others; and are prone to 

 find a particular antagonism in persons of their own temperament, 

 The sexual emotions are unduly developed, oftentimes giving tone to 

 the character, or acting with explosive violence. Persons of this type 

 are not among those who form the grand aggregate of the conservative 

 opinion of society, the inflexible and implacable character of which 

 we all know, and which upon the emotional tension of the nervous man 

 often reacts harmfully rather than well. Typical instances of this 

 temperament are confined to the male sex, the other sex usually show- 

 ing a cross with the sanguine or bilious. 



This temperament does not show a liability to any class of disease, 

 but gives its own characteristic reaction upon the disease itself. From 

 the ascendency of the nervous system in the physical and mental 

 composition, diseases of the nerves are very liable to appear, but not 

 as a primary derangement any more than as a complication grafted 

 upon some previously-existing disease. Nervous headache, neuralgia, 

 epilepsy, insomnia, and hysteria, are among the nervous affections 

 most liable to appear, either as primary or secondary derangements. 

 With this class it is difficult to give an opinion as to the result in any 

 serious disease (prognosis), as they often die of diseases that in other 



