and disposition. I have known cases where the happiness of entire families has been wrecked by the tea and coffee tippling of the parents. This form of tippling produces nervous irritation, irritability of the disposition, sleeplessness, and consequent exhaustion, and, carried to excess, other diseases supervene and lead to insanity and death. What is an excessive use of tea? Whenever the exhilaration produced by tea is quite perceptible to the drinker, the use is excessive; for the nervous system will react and become lowered and enfeebled in proportion to the exhilaration produced. Stolid, vegetative persons can drink several cups of tea at a meal without being so stimulated as a nervous or mental person would by drinking one cup. Coffee acts as a poison, and is such to those whose liver or nerves are affected by its action. When coffee induces tremulousness or wakefulness, it is highly deleterious and should be avoided. Tea and coffee are less injurious to those who perform hard, manual labor, especially if they work out of doors. Sedentary persons who live mainly indoors do not have the neutralizing benefit of perspiration and fresh air, hence retain all the deleterious principles of tea and coffee in the system, and are accordingly more injured by their use. The best drinks are those which are the most simple and natural; lemonade, and fruit-juices pressed from berries, such as currants, raspberries, etc., sweetened and cooled by setting them upon ice in warm weather, are most wholesome and refreshing. In the matter of quantity each one should be guided by his own individual needs. In hot climates, where perspiration is engendered freely, or by working in foundries and in the kitchen, a larger supply is required than in cooler places. Excessive indulgence in water or other liquids induces obesity. Salt in the system, combining with the water, creates chemical activity, which eliminates the uttermost amount of carbonaceous matter from the food, and thus fat is stored away about the large visceral organs and under the skin all over the body, as is seen in infants, who exist entirely upon fluid foods. When this taste is indulged in to excess, it is transmitted to offspring in an intensified form and leaves its sign in the face in a most decided manner. Hereditary love of liquids does not always induce a love for alcoholic stimulants, but is liable to do so if opportunity offers, and social customs influence the character. The offspring of inebriates often carry this facial record of their parents' vice, and thus physiognomy not only discloses one's propensities, but also discloses what vices have cursed the parents. All signs about the region of the mouth denote in some degree the condition of the fluid circulation. The sign for the kidneys is situated in the chin, and the descendants of inebriates disclose by the smallness and narrowness of the chin the moral degradation which has resulted as a consequence of vitiated physical organs. A great deal of the condition of the fluid circulation may be known by the color of the complexion and eyes. Very pale or ashen-colored skin indicates an impoverished, anæmic state of the blood; waxy-looking skin, a dropsical condition of the fluid system; while a delicate or fresh and rosy hue of the skin discloses a healthful, normal state of the fluids of the body. Very light eyes announce a weakness of the kidney system, or defective action of the reproductive system, one or both. Physiology teaches us that nine hundred and twenty-seven parts of the retina of the eye is composed of water. Now, if the fluids of the body are greatly in excess of the normal requirements, the eye would also partake of this excess, and by the weakness of its color would reveal this deficiency of coloring pigment and strength of the humors of the eye. The eyes of Albinos are proof of this theory, and very light-eyed people do not possess the same degree of visual power as do those who exhibit a normal supply of coloring pigment in the eyes. The primitive animals were aquatic; later, they evolved an amphibious nature, and still later took up their abode entirely upon land. Among men we find representatives of these several classes of animals. The natives of the islands of the Pacific Ocean almost live in the water, and from their infancy are accustomed to pass a great share of their lives in and upon the water. Among civilized races, we observe every variety of the bibative individual. We see those who are built like the hippopotamus, and who possess many of its characteristics. This class of people are semi-aquatic in nature, and live mainly upon liquid foods and love bathing and swimming. Like the hippopotamus, they are always looking for food, and are indolent and mild except when enraged, and then are terrible in their exhibitions of wrath. All persons with the sign for Bibativeness large are very fond of bathing, swimming, and all aquatic exercises. Women with this sign large like scrubbing, and washing and any pursuits. which require the use of water. Natural bathers are known by fullness of the lower cheek, together with a healthy color of the complexion. Thin or hollow-cheeked persons do not exhibit a taste for bathing, and if they are pale as well as hollow-cheeked should never indulge in full baths, but make use of the spongebath quickly applied, as their circulatory power is comparatively feeble and a full bath would take so much of the natural heat of the body as to prevent in many subjects a healthy reaction. Water is thus shown to be indispensable to every stage of life. It also enters more largely into primitive life and infantile conditions; hence it is that those human organisms which possess a disproportionate quantity of water or fluid are relatively more immature or childlike in their mentality than those who possess a normal quantity. The differences observed between a vegetative adult and a bony or muscular one will afford a good illustration of the influence which water has upon the human body and mind. ALIMENTIVENESS, DIGESTION. Definition.-Hunger, love of eating, large digestive capacity, healthy and normal assimilation of solid and liquid foods. Epicureanism is a refined phase of this faculty and function. Gluttony and gormandizing are perverted states of this faculty. An excess of the love of eating and drinking leads to gluttony, gross size, dullness of intellect, and numerous diseases, among which are apoplexy, indigestion, dropsical conditions, inflammations, and rheumatism. A defective digestive capacity causes lack of bodily and mental vigor, nervousness, consumption, dyspepsia, and numerous other ills. Defective digestion is indicated by a narrow mouth, thin cheeks; thin, pale, and dry lips; a shrunken appearance of the parotid gland; colorless or pallid complexion; long, high, and thin nose, or a nose flat at the middle portion; long, slim neck; narrow shoulders, flat abdomen; long, thin, or transparent hands, fingers, and ears; feeble, hesitating gait. Facial and Bodily Signs.—A wide mouth; full, red, and moist lips; full, red cheeks, with a plentiful supply of the soft tissues about the chin, are the primary facial signs of good digestive capacity; also, fullness of the parotid gland just in front of the ear-opening. The bodily signs are shown by a well-nourished body, full abdomen, full breast; short, thick, wrinkled neck, and plenty of soft tissue over all parts of the body; hands and fingers well supplied with flesh. Gluttony in some pushes the eyeball up and forward, leaving a good portion of the "white" of the eye exposed below the retina; where this appearance is noted, it is accompanied invariably by intense periodical headaches, owing to an inordinate or uncontrolled appetite. DESCRIPTION OF ALIMENTIVENESS.-The majority of people understand that the fullness of the lower part of the cheeks denotes good digestive powers, but, with a singular lack of logic, fail to reason that if Nature has placed the sign of one function or faculty in the face there may be others there also, and hence look no farther for signs for the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the heart, the muscles, etc. In infancy the diet is entirely of a liquid nature, hence we should naturally infer that the signs for infantile digestion would be different from those exhibited by adults. This reasoning is correct, for infants while in the liquid stage exhibit the sign for digestion by a peculiar fullness of the cheek about half an inch backward from the corners of the mouth, externally to and on a line with the mouth. Observation of any well-nourished infant will locate this cushion-like protuberance. After the infant exchanges its fluid diet for a more solid one this cushion of soft, dimpled fat disappears and the fullness moves farther back to the outer sides of the lower part of the checks, unless there is an uncommon love of liquids, such as soups, milk, lemonade, soda, gravies, sauces, etc.; in this case the fullness of infancy is retained to adult life, and is one of Nature's unfailing facial hieroglyphs which denotes love of liquid foods. This fullness is not due to muscular development, for in infancy the muscles have not been used for mastication, but is due solely to glandular development, which is a vegetative process purely and operated with but trifling muscular action. The juices created by the imbibition of liquid foods assist in building up the cheeks to scmetimes an enormous fullness, which present a globular appearance, and in this stage of nutrition. the infant or adult looks like a puff-ball and exhibits globular forms all over the soft parts of the body. Veteran beer-drinkers often present this formation of face and body, which proves that this function derives its support from a liquid or vegetative base. The width of the nostrils, as well as the height and width of the nose at this junction with the forehead, is one excellent indication of one part of the process of digestion, for this formation shows that the sense of scent is powerfully developed, and the capacity for scenting flavors, odors, etc., bears direct relationship to the function of digestion. The olfactory ganglia are located here, and if the external nose were removed the sense of scent, of smell, would still remain in a great degree. A long, slim nose is not as active in distinguishing odors as a broad nose; neither are persons possessing this formation characterized by as great a love for food as those with a very broad nose, for the sign for the stomach is situated at the bridge of the nose and its strength is indicated by width at this place. A remarkable illustration and verification of this principle may be observed in the animal kingdom. Compare, for example, the facial peculiarities and structure of the lion and greyhound. The lion has a wide mouth, broad nostrils, and a nose broad its entire length; it is also wide between the eyes where the olfactory ganglia are situated; while the greyhound is just the reverse in structure, in digestive power, and capacity for scenting. Of this peculiar deficiency of this species of dog, we are told by natural history that "the narrow head and sharp nose of the greyhound, useful as they are for aiding the progress of the animal by removing every impediment to its passage through the atmosphere, yet deprive it of a most valuable faculty,-that of chasing by scent. The muzzle is so narrow in proportion to its length that the nasal FIG. 30.-SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. (NAVAL OFFICER, nerves have no room for proper development, and hence the animal is very deficient in its power of scent.' In striking contrast to the greyhound are the bull-dog and the bloodhound, the pointer, retriever, and reindeer, which are as conspicuous for their keenness of scent as they are for the width of the nose and nostrils. The function of digestion amply illustrates the theory of the association of physical function with mental faculty. Alimentiveness is the mental aspect of the love, taste, and desire for food, while digestion is the physical aspect of this bodily function. Large di Locality, Order, Language, and Reason are of the first gestive capacity is always order, and the student of physiognomy will have a fine field for the study of grand character in this resolute, capable countenance. attended with great love of eating. It depends upon the inherited quality of the individual, whether the taste for food shall be a coarse or a fine one. A fine-grained person, exhibiting large digestive powers, would naturally incline to epicureanism, while one of coarse quality would care more for quantity-more for a gross plenty-than for fine quality of food and drink; he would be apt to express himself as did a veteran toper, who, when chided for going into low groggeries for his liquor, replied, "I know there's a difference in whisky, but its all good." Those * Wood's New Illustrated Natural History, Rev. J. G. Wood, p. 51. |