Phrenology versus intemperance : a lecture on temperance, considered physiologically and phrenologically : or, The laws of life, and the principles of the human constitution, as developed by the sciences of phrenology and physiology, applied to total abstinence from all alcoholic and intoxicating drinks / by O.S. Fowler.

  • Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire), 1809-1887.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology versus intemperance : a lecture on temperance, considered physiologically and phrenologically : or, The laws of life, and the principles of the human constitution, as developed by the sciences of phrenology and physiology, applied to total abstinence from all alcoholic and intoxicating drinks / by O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    marked, and all about equally balanced. Is there too much of the motive, there is power, yet but little action, so that the talents lie dormant. Does the vital-motive greatly predominate over the mental, though there may be physical power and enjoyment, there will be too little mental, too much grossness, coarseness and obtuseness of feeling, with too little of the intellectual and too much of the animal. But where the mental greatly preponderates, there will be too much mind for the body, too great sensi- tiveness, too much intensity of feeling, and that too exquisite, too much 6entimentalism and refinement, with a tendency to precocity, which indu- ces an early death. These temperaments and their predominance may be apdy compared to the several parts of a steamboat. The vital is the wood, water, fire, 6team and engine, which produce the propelling power; the motive is the hulk; the mental, the freight and passengers. When the vital pre- dominates, it manufactures more steam, more vital energy, more impulse, more animality than the brain, nerves, and muscle can work off, which produces an overflowing of feeling and passion, a restlessness, a high pressure, and a liability to explode. The lion has a prodigious chest, and an amount of animal power almost beyond conception, with but a small brain. Hence with scarcely a hundredth part of his strength, but with well developed brain and nerves, man can accomplish a thousand fold more. Does the osseous and muscular system greatly predominate, there is too much hulk ; the person will move slowly and feel but little, enjoy and suffer only proportionally little, and if the mental is also weak, be obtuse in intellect, a stranger to refinement and intellectual enjoyment, and having but few passengers, the boat of life will be too light freight- ed to be worth running, or to secure the great ends of existence, namely, intellectual and moral enjoyment. But where the mental greatly pre- dominates, the vessel is overladen, the energies of the system are drawn from the digestive apparatus and muscles, and concentrated in the brain, which thus consumes the vital powers faster than the vital organs can man- ufacture the re-supply. This over-draught, whilst it greatly augments the talents, also causes premature death. This principle, whilst it explains the cause of the premature death of precocious children, cautions excessive parental fondness not to press them forward in study, lest by increasing the predominence of the brain they thus hurry them into an early grave. It is also illustrated by the ill health, the dyspepsia, the nervousness, head-ache, ennui, &c. of our literary and sedentary classes, and by the intellectual obtuseness of those who neglect mental culture. Consump- tive families are usually slim-built and narrow chested, which indicate weak vital organs and very active brains. This disproportion of parts hastens their death. Apoplexy, gout, <fec. are caused by the opposite extreme, and if physicians would but restore the lost balance between the tempera- ments, they would save many patients whom they now lose. If man- kind in general would onlv keep these temperaments equally balanced, if, when they are becoming nervous, they would labor more and think and feel less, when worn down with labor, they would rest and read, when they have taken more food than exercise they would restore the balance between the two, if, like Bonaparte, they would take the extreme opposite that which caused their disorder—which is only applying the prin- A.