Notices respecting New Books. 455 
eases which are connate in others: hydrocephalus, which is con- 
nate in some families, in others occurs to several brothers and 
sisters in succession as they arrive at a certain age.’ The dis- 
position to blindness and deafness is often hereditary, though the 
connate privation of these senses is generally confined to a single 
generation. When the disposition is hereditary, the children are 
born with perfect organs, but usually about the age of puberty 
their vision declines, Predispositions also are found in some 
families, and dispositions in others, to diseases of the same or- 
gans, and called by the same name, as pulmonary consumption. 
In some farnilies, a number of brothers. and sisters fall into con- 
sumption on arriving at a certain age: this may strictly be called 
a family disposition to the disease, inasmuch as it is confined to 
a single generation, and as we can discover no external cause to 
excite it. Another kind of consumption, and the most common 
in cold climates, is hereditary; but only in predisposition, al- 
ways requiring the influence of climate to induce it, and conse- 
quently always to be prevented, and often relieved, by avoiding 
the exciting cause. Gout and madness are, by almost universal 
consent, deemed hereditary; yet, if we admit the general im- 
plication as to their immediate causes, both these diseases, and 
particularly the former, should be considered as only hereditary 
in predisposition.” . 
Dr. A, illustrates these accurate distinctions by well authenti- 
eated cases, which must contribute to diffuse a more correct 
kuowledge of such diseases into the language of popular con- 
versation, as well as tend to remove erroneous prejudices, and 
many serious obstacles to social happiness. From his extensive 
medical practice, however, and his acute observation, we ex- 
pected a curious section on family cutaneous diseases, which, in 
an age when external appearance is one of the most general 
studies, could not fail to interest great numbers of his fashionable 
readers. ‘The remarks on elephantiasis occasionally digress 
_from principles to persons, The author’s concluding summary, 
indeed, is worthy of his talents and medical skill, ‘The result is, 
_ That connate diseases or privations are not hereditary; that 
dispositions to certain diseases are more commonly family than 
hereditary; that the diseases arising from them usually show 
themselves at certain ages; if early in life, that we have little 
chance of preventing or curing them, but that such of the chil- 
dren as escape that age, are as safe as the descendants from 
other families, That hereditary predispositions to the most 
prevalent diseases are brought into action either by climate, 
which destroys at an early age those who would be the means 
of transmitting such predispositions to posterity, or by such ex- 
ternal causes as may often be preyented, That whenever an 
Ff4 hereditary 
