The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English: or, Medicine Simplified, 54th ed., One Million, Six Hundred; and Fifty Thousand — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English: or, Medicine Simplified, 54th ed., One Million, Six Hundred; and Fifty Thousand
John Stuart Mill · en
Dr. W.B. Powell has observed that a lymphatic man has a large head,
while a fat man has a small one, and also that fat and lymph, are
convertible, one following the other, _i.e.,_ "a repletion consisting of
fat may be removed, and one of lymph may replace it, and _vice versa_."
He could not account for these alternations. The bear goes into his
winter quarters sleek and fat, and comes forth in the spring just as
plump with lymph, but he loses this fat appearance soon after obtaining
food. This simply indicates that, during lymphatic activity, the
digestive organs are comparatively quiescent. But when these are
functionally employed again, lymphatic economy is not required. It is
the duty of the lymphatics to slowly convert the fat by such
transformation, that when it reaches the general circulation, it may
there unite with other organic compounds, the process being aided by
atmospheric nitrogen, introduced during the act of respiration. In this
way it may become changed into those chemically indefinite, artificial
products, called proteid compounds. This view is supported by the
disappearance of fat as an organized product in the lymph of the
lymphatic vessels, indicating that such transformation has occurred. In
this way, by uniting with other organic compounds, it appears that lymph
may serve as a weak basis for blood; that atmospheric nitrogen is also
employed in forming these artificial compounds, is indicated by the fact
that there is sometimes less detected in arterial than in venous blood.
[Illustration: Fig. 82.
Judge Green, of the United States Court. ]
This temperament is indicated by lymphatic repletion, soft flesh, pale
complexion, watery blood, slow and soft pulse, oval head, and broad
skull, showing breadth at its base. Fig. 82 illustrates this temperament
combined with sanguine elements. In all good illustrations of this
temperament, there is a breadth of the anterior base of the skull
extending forward to the cheek bones. There is likewise a corresponding
fullness of the face under the chin, and in the neck, denoting a large
development of the anterior base of the cerebrum. The cerebral
conformation of the Hon. Judge Green indicates mental activity, and we
have no reason to suppose that lymph was particularly abundant in his
brain.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.]