A REMARKABLE ANTICIPATION, ETC. wr 
the appropriate causes; “that . . . the gouty diathesis, for 
example, may be acquired by long habits of intemperance, 
and transmitted to posterity,’ and so also with other ill 
effects witnessed in the children of dissolute parents. If 
this be so, Prichard admits that “we have a clear: proof 
of the hereditary nature of acquired states of the constitu- 
tion ”’. 
Against such a view he contends that any particular 
disease can only follow when there exists “a preparation, 
laid in the first place by nature, in the original stamina and 
habit of the body”; and he points out that the same hurtful 
cause may produce quite distinct diseases. Thus “ intempe- 
rate living . . . is commonly said to bring on, in one person, 
a predisposition to gout, in another to diseases of the liver, 
or of the stomach, or of the brain. Now since the difference 
is not in the external causes, it must be in the natural 
peculiarities of the constitutions on which they act. These, 
therefore, are previously fitted by original organization to 
take on them one form of morbid affection rather than 
another. It is then clear that the predisposition is laid by 
natural or congenital structure, in the first instance.” Indi- 
viduals differ in particular organs; the exciting causes of 
disease bring out the weaknesses which previously existed 
and might otherwise have remained unknown. Such de- 
fects “being a part of the original bodily structure” are 
hereditary. ‘‘ The first individual who exposes himself to 
the morbid causes, first betrays the peculiar defect of his 
race, and is thus erroneously supposed to lay the foundation 
fon it.” 
Syphilis, which appears to be an exception, he explains 
by ‘‘a peculiar mode of infection. . . . This is evidently a 
phoenomenon of a very different kind from the similarity of 
structure which the laws of nature have ordained between 
parents and their offspring.” 
Hence he infers ‘that the phoenomena of predisposition 
to diseases, rather confirms than invalidates the general 
observations before laid down, and we may be allowed to 
conclude, that no acquired varieties of constitution become 
hereditary, or in any manner affect the race”. / Batis 
ys y | ences ama SON 
