THEORIES OF GREGORY AND THOMAS. 991 



nexion with temperament than the colour of our 

 garments; for when it is yellow, olive, brown, 

 or black, and the cuticle thick, the richest blood 

 does not shew itself in the skin ; but when fair, 

 the cuticle thin and transparent, it shews its 

 character in the florid, pale, or livid hue of the 

 face. The opinion of the ancients that yellow 

 and dark complexions depend on the excess of 

 yellow or black bile, was adopted by Blumen- 

 bach and Smith, who imagined that the black- 

 ness of the negro race is owing to an excess of 

 the hepatic secretion in hot climates ; whereas 

 complexion is only skin deep, but temperament 

 involves the whole physical and intellectual or- 

 ganization. 



The division of temperaments into sanguine, 

 choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic, has re- 

 mained from the time of Hippocrates down to 

 that of Dr. Gregory, who added a fifth division, 

 which he denominated the nervous. But another 

 classification has been recently proposed and 

 ably supported by Dr. F. Thomas, in a Treatise 

 entitled Physiologic du Temperamens, published 

 at Paris in 1826 ; in which the intelligent author 

 refers all the varieties of constitution to the rela- 

 tive size of the thorax, brain, and abdomen. He 

 maintains that when the lungs are more highly 

 developed than any of the other principal organs, 

 the temperament is thoracic, that when the brain 

 is large, compared with the chest and abdomen, 



