INDUCED DISEASE, ETC. 61 



every particular, he goes on his way freer than other men from the 

 external causes of all the induced diseases, and better protected than 

 most men from the worst consequences of those diseases which spring 

 from causes that are uncontrollable. 



I do not hold up this picture as an encouragement to avarice, for 

 an avaricious world would truly be a sad one. " But there is a soul 

 of goodness in things evil, would men observingly distill it out," aud, 

 certainly, much goodness might be observed even in the perverted 

 passion of avarice, if reckless and over-generous men would conde- 

 scend to the distillation. 



Some of the most extreme instances, at all events, nay, the most 

 typical instances, of longevity with perfect jihysical health that I 

 have met with, have been in those who are tinctured practically with 

 the passion under consideration. It is true some have not been 

 happy, and none eminently useful ; but to the physiological mind 

 they present a remarkable picture of the endurance of health and 

 life under Avhat are nearest to the natural conditions necessary for 

 both. They suggest that if with this physical standard a higher and 

 nobler mental development could be attained, with art and science 

 and benevolent labors as the pleasures added to the life, the approach 

 to perfection of existence would be closely realized, and the age, not 

 of the man only but of the world of life to which he belongs, would 

 be more thoughtfully conserved. 



Of the passions I have enumerated as most detrimental to life, 

 anger stands first. He is a man very rich indeed in physical power 

 who can afford to be angry. The richest cannot afford it many times 

 without insuring the penalty, a penalty that is always severe. What 

 is still worse of this passion is, that the very disease it engenders 

 feeds it, so that if the impulse go many times unchecked it becomes 

 the master of the man. 



The effects of passion are brought out entirely through disturb- 

 ance in the organic nervous chain. We say a man was "red "with 

 rage, or we say he was " white " with rage, by which terms, as by 

 degrees of comparison, we express the extent of his fury. Physio- 

 logically we are then speaking of the nervous condition of the minute 

 circulation of his blood : that " red " rage means partial paralysis of 

 minute blood-vessels: that "white" rage means temporary suspension 

 of the action of the prime mover of the circulation itself. But such 

 disturbances cannot often be produced without the occurrence of per- 

 manent organic evils of the vital organs, especially of the heart and 

 of the brain. 



The effect of rage xipon the heart is to induce a permanently per- 

 verted motion, and particularly that perverted motion called intermit- 

 tency. One striking example, among others of this kind which I could 

 name, was afforded me in the case of a member of my own profession. 

 This gentleman told me that an original irritability of temper was 



