The temperament of each individual or of a race is an important factor in a judicious consideration of the subject; it opens out a field of inquiry of no ordinary interest, more particularly as regards eastern nations. By temperament physiologists mean certain physical and mental characteristics arising from the predominant humours of the body. Galen in the second century was perhaps the first to employ the term to designate, according to the teachings of the old school, the condition of the four elements of the body—the blood, choler, phlegm, gall—and the varying combinations of these, recognised to-day as the sanguine, lymphatic, nervous, or bilious temperaments. Interest in this aspect of the subject is heightened when we consider the marvellous effect the consumption of tobacco has had on races inhabiting Western Asia. Speaking on this curious point in the Indian Section of the Imperial Institute in February, 1896, Sir George Birdwood called attention to the change wrought in the character of the Turks by its use. He remarked that in ancient times the Scythians were a ceaseless scourge to the neighbouring nations; that they were referred to by the prophet Jeremiah as a ‘seething caldron,’ ever boiling over in fierce and cruel eruptions from the North. Where are they now? They have become the modern Turks; and the magic which changed them from restless, destructive nomads into the quiet and only too conservative sedentary Turks, Von Moltke tells us in his _Letters from Turkey_ was none other than the acquired American habit of smoking tobacco. Coming from so profound an observer of men as the great German strategist, this testimony to the influence of the Indian weed on human character is to be accepted as a valuable contribution to our knowledge. And yet, viewed in the light of recent events in Turkey, the marvellous transformation mentioned would seem to be hardly yet completed. Besides, may not other influences tending to modify the character of the Turks be found in their four centuries of intermarriage with tribes of a less turbulent disposition, as with Persians and Circassians, than the fiery, stubborn mountaineers from whom they had descended? It seems but reasonable to think so. Let us hasten, however, to note that other distinguished travellers in Turkey speak to the same effect, and that they, too, attribute the change to the sobering and soothing action of tobacco upon them. Dr. Madden, whose _Travels in Turkey and Egypt_ were published in 1829, says (i. 16) that