tion of the right loin, which terminated in a large and bad ulcer. Dr. Laycock, in his Essay on Hysteria, reports a case of a young woman, of indolent habits and obstinate temper, becoming affected with hysteria, ecstasy, and sweating of blood, from being angered. Having been much irritated in consequence of some remarks of her parents, she left home in consequence, and after wandering about for some time, she entered a hospital, suffering under violent attacks of hysteria and general convulsions. "After paroxysms which sometimes lasted twenty-four or thirty-six hours, she fell into a kind of ecstasy-her eyes being fixed, and sensibility and motion suspended. Sometimes she muttered a prayer, and blood would exude in drops from the cheeks and epigastrium, in the form of perspiration." Dr. Whytt observes, that anger has been immediately followed by bleeding at the nipples, and a rupture of such vessels as were lately cicatrized.* I have now and then met with instances of erysipelatous inflammation about the face and neck, induced by paroxysms of passion. Other cutaneous affections, as urticaria, or nettle-rash, lepra, or leprosy, and herpetic eruptions, will oftentimes, especially where any predisposition to them exists, be produced by the same cause. I have known nettle-rash, in some constitutions, to be almost uniformly brought on by any strong mental emotion. And of leprosy, Cazenave remarks, that "one of the most common causes is to be traced * Observations on Nervous Disorders. to the mental affections; hence it is not rare to see Lepra vulgaris supervene on a fit of anger, or violent grief or fear."* Dr. Pettigrew cites a singular effect of anger, in a boy. Whenever he "fell into a passion, one-half of his face would become quite pale, while the other was very red and heated, and these two colors were exactly limited by a line running down the middle of the forehead, nose, lips, and chin. When this boy had heated himself by any violent exercise, the whole face became equally red."† As substances most prejudicial, and even poisonous, to the healthy organism, may exercise medicinal virtues in certain states of disease, so extreme anger, although generally baneful in its effects, has, by its powerful impulse, occasionally subdued distressing and obstinate maladies, as neuralgia, gout, agues, paralysis, and various nervous affections. Dr. Abercrombie mentions a case of palsy of six years' continuance, where recovery suddenly took place under a violent paroxysm of anger. *On Cutaneous Diseases. + Superstitions connected with Medicine and Surgery. CHAPTER XV. ANGER, CONCLUDED.-PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF ITS CHRONIC ACTION. IT MAY BE EXCITED BY MORBID STATES OF THE HAVING learnt in the preceding chapter how severe and dangerous are the effects of acute anger on the vital economy, it will create no surprise that, under its more chronic action, as in habitual irritability or fretfulness of temper, enmity, hatred, revenge, or other malevolent feelings, as envy or jealousy, in which anger, to a greater or less degree, is almost necessarily blended, the bodily health should, earlier or later, experience a baneful influence. The continued torment of mind proceeding from passions of this nature, can scarce be otherwise than detrimental to the physical constitution. In the stomach and liver, their effects are early and clearly evinced. Thus will the appetite and digestion become impaired, and the hepatic secretion be variously disordered, and sometimes partially or even entirely obstructed, when the bile, being absorbed into the system, taints the complexion with that dark and bilious hue which is so characteristic of an unamiable or malignant temper. Wherefore the common expression, to turn black with anger, hatred, or revenge, it is not unlikely originated in just observation. It is a literal truth, although expressed in poetry, that one may Irritability and moroseness of temper may also occasion various inflammatory and nervous complaints, and those more especially to which there is a constitutional tendency. Gout, rheumatism, hysterics, nervous headaches, tic douloureux, and numerous other painful affections, are liable to be excited, or their fits to be renewed under such prejudicial influences. Nothing surely can be more desirable, both as it concerns our moral and physical health, than a quiet resignation to the fate decreed us. Fretting and repining under unavoidable evils only adds to their burden, and to the eye of true philosophy shows a temper about as inconsistent as that exhibited by some of the heathen world in flagellating their gods for the calamities befalling them. The condition of temper now occupying our consideration, is particularly injurious when the system is laboring under disease. It is well known to every observing physician, that fractious patients, other circumstances being the same, recover less promptly, and are more exposed to relapses than those who bear their sufferings with more composure and resignation. And equally familiar is it to the surgeon, that under a bad state of temper, wounds heal less kindly, and when recently healed will even at times break out afresh. Likewise, that external inflammations pass less safely and regularly through their restorative processes, and that the pus of abscesses may be speedily transformed from a healthy to a morbid condition, under such unfriendly moral agency. Regarding then merely our physical welfare, the importance of cultivating an amiableness of temper, of educating ourselves to meet with tranquilness the little ills and crosses of life, will not be denied. It is, after all, the minor evils, the trifling annoyances, or such as tend but to ruffle or fret our feelings, that are apt to be the least resolutely supported, and that oftentimes do more to mar our happiness, and impair our health, than even absolute and grave calamities. Many who would be impatient under the pricking of a pin, might submit with scarce a tremor or complaint to a grave and painful operation. It is only under strong occasions that the full energies of our nature are called forth. Our powers are aroused in correspondence with the emergencies they have to encounter. Thus it is only in lofty and responsible positions that the human character discovers its full force and dignity. Even the weak and timid soul will often astonish us by its patience and fortitude under great sufferings and dangers. Slight maladies of body, too, will frequently be marked by excessive irritability and unreasonable repining, while those of a more serious |