On the Aborigines of Brazil, 23 



Lymphatic Temperament, Phlegma. 

 From all the natural and acquired endowments of mind 

 and body which I have described, it follows, that the Indian's 

 temperament is lymphatic. Poor in blood, in animal heat 

 and vitality, cramped in all those intellectual actions, which 

 might awaken his system, supporting himself from year to 

 year with recurring monotony on a coarse, heavy, ill-prepared, 

 unseasoned diet, the Indian has his naturally weak system 

 as it were steeped in crude fluids. He is an indolent, cold, 

 heavy nature, an amphibious man. The inexcitability of 

 his blood vessels, which, but few emotions can awaken into 

 activity, the cold creeping circulation of his blood, the slow 

 assimilation of scanty nourishment from a vast quantity of 

 coarse food, and the clouded, obstinate, grovelling, sunken- 

 ness of his soul, may be fairly regarded as the elements of a 

 specially lymphatic temperament. It shews the predomi- 

 nance of a phlegmatic and a melancholic disposition.* 



II. — The Diseases of the Aborigines of Brazil. 



INTRODUCTION. 



We have already said enough to enable us to divine, 

 what must be the nature of the diseases to which this race 

 of men is subject. They are such as originate especially 

 in the system of assimilation and nutrition : diseases of the 

 lymphatic system. 



In accordance with the slight excitability of the Indian, 

 they run their course slowly, involve few other organs, assume 

 a very acute character but seldom, have rarely a marked 

 periodicity, and often terminate, without the nervous system 



* Catlin's accounts of the North American Indians, though perhaps too highly 

 coloured, paint them, when not in contact with civilized man, in a far more favor- 

 able light physically and intellectually, than that in which the learned Munich 

 Professor exhibits the Brazilian Indian.—- Tr. 



