436 



remarkable superabundance of the biliary juices, most commonly acconr- 

 pany ing this constitution of body, in which the vascular sanguineous system 

 enjoys the greatest, energy to the prejudice of the cellular and lymphatic 

 system, the ancients gave it the name of bilious. The diseases to which 

 those distinguished by it are subject, involve, in fact, either as their prin- 

 cipal characteristic, or as accessary circumstances, or as complication, 

 the derangement of the action of the hepatic organs, joined to changes 

 of composition in the bile. Among the remedies directed against these 

 sort of diseases, evacuants, and especially emetics, are the best. 



Tf all the characteristics assigned to the bilious temperament are car- 

 ried to the highest degree of intensity, and to this state is added great 

 susceptibility, men are irascible, impetuous, violent, on the slightest oc- 

 casions. Such Homer describes Achilles, and some others of his 

 heroes. 



CCXXX1V. When, to the bilious temperament, is added diseased 

 obstruction of any one of the organs of the abdomen, or derangement of 

 the functions of the nervous system, so that the vhal functions are feebly 

 or irregularly performed, the skin takes a deeper hue, the look becomes 

 uneasy and gloomy, the bowels sluggish, all the excretions difficult ; 

 the pulse hard and habitually contracted. The general uneasiness 

 affects the mind ; the imagination becomes gloomy, the disposition sus- 

 picious; the exceedingly multiplied varieties of this temperament called 

 by the ancients the melancholic^ the diversity of accidents that may bring it 

 on, such as hereditary disease? long grief, excessive study, the abuse of 

 pleasures, &c. justify the opinion which Glerc has proposed, in his natural 

 history of man, in a state qf disease, where he considers, the melancholic 

 temperament less as a primitive and natural constitution, than as a dis- 

 eased affection hereditary or acquired. The characters of Lewis XL and 

 Tiberius, leave nothing wanting for the moral determination of this tem- 

 perament. Read, in the Memoirs of Philip de Commines, and in the 

 Annals of Tacitus, the history of these two tyrants, fearful, perfidious, 

 mistrustful, suspicious, seeking solitude by instinct, and polluting it by all 

 the acts of the most savage atrocity, and the most ungoverned debauch. 

 Distrust and fearfulness, joined to all the disorders of imagination, com- 

 pose the moral character of this temperament. The passage in which 

 Tacitus paints the artful conduct of Tiberius, when he refuses the em- 

 pire, offered him, after the death of Augustus, may be given as the most 

 perfect model of it. Fersse inde ad Tiberiem p. reces, fyc. Corn. Tacit. An- 

 nal. lib. I. 



As Professor Pinel very justly observes, in his treatise on insanity, the 

 history of men celebrated in the sciences, letters and arts, has shown us 

 the melancholic under a different light : endowed with exquisite feeling, 

 and the finest perception : devoured with an ardent enthusiasm for the 

 beautiful, capable of realizing it in rich conceptions, living with men in 

 a state of reserve bordering upon distrust, analyzing with care all their 

 actions, catching in sentiment its most delicate shades, but ready in un- 

 favourable interpretations, and seeing all things through the dingy glass 

 of melancholy. 



It is extremely difficult to delineate this temperament in a general or 

 abstract manner. Though the ground-work of the picture remains al- 

 ways the same, its numerous circumstances give room for an infinite 

 number of variations. It is better, therefore, to have recourse to the lives 

 f illustrious men, who have exhibited it in all its force. Tasso, Pascal, 



