IMPORTANCE OF A LARGE THORAX. 1007 



manifest, that this is not the temperament of 

 robust health, nor of intellectual power to the 

 highest extent. 



It is a great blessing to be born with a large 

 thorax ; for it offers the surest pledge of vigorous 

 health and long life. Had all men such chests 

 as the Duke of Wellington or Daniel O'Connell, 

 disease would be greatly diminished, and the du- 

 ration of life augmented. I am informed that 

 six individuals of the Wellesley family, recently 

 alive, had arrived at the aggregate age of 443 

 years, making the average of each 74 years. 

 And Mr. O'Connell stated, in a speech last year, 

 that among 22 children of his grandmother, 1 1 

 arrived at the age of 96 or upwards. (Vide 

 Examiner, March 14, 1841.) Like the heroes of 

 Greece and Rome, the physical energies of these 

 illustrious Irishmen were developed by exercise 

 in the open air, and its free circulation through 

 their capacious lungs, without which they never 

 could have endured so much bodily and mental 

 exertion. 



With a full chest and sound lungs, men are 

 able to endure degrees of cold, muscular exercise, 

 loss of sleep, excesses in eating and drinking, that 

 would soon shorten the lives of ordinary indi- 

 viduals. Nor is it true, as maintained by Thomas 

 and other physiologists, that the thoracic or san- 

 guineous temperament is peculiarly liable to 

 inflammatory diseases. And there is reason to 



