in the temperature of mid-day and midnight is at its maximum. We have
therefore a powerful sedative effect in the morning, which braces and
invigorates the body; a powerful reactive effect at mid-day, which
rouses and stimulates the actions and sensibilities of the frame; and
again towards evening a sedative effect, from the increasing cold
reaching its maximum at midnight.

As the season passes on from the Equinox towards the winter solstice,
the heat of the sun daily diminishes, and the cold gains a daily
preponderance. The sedative effect on the body goes on progressively
increasing, being less and less counteracted by any genial influence
from the solar heat at mid-day; whence the gloom and depression so
universally experienced by the nervous in November and December, which
is more and more felt till the shortest day. So soon as the minimum of
solar influence and maximum of sedative effect on the body has passed
over, the sun gradually acquires more of meridian influence, and a daily
increasing ascendancy over the prevalent cold. The human constitution at
the same time is subject to a proportionate reactive disposition; which
reaction is felt most at noon, and it daily becomes more and more
apparent till the vernal equinox, when we have the difference betwixt
the meridian and midnight temperature again at a maximum. We have daily
a powerful sedative effect in the morning, a powerful meridian reaction,
which again subsides into a sedative condition on the access of the
evening. This daily effect on the constitution is exactly similar to
that at the autumnal equinox, only it occurs under different
circumstances. In autumn it is connected with departing heat and
progressively increasing cold; in Spring it is connected with
progressively diminishing cold and advancing heat. After the vernal
equinox, the difference in the meridian and midnight temperature
gradually diminishes; the daily sedative effect at morning and evening