THE BRADSHAW LECTURE 



ME. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, There is, 

 perhaps, nothing more remarkable in comparing 

 the teaching of former years with that of the 

 present day, than to note the gradual recession 

 and disuse of the word diathesis, as the true 

 microbic cause of disease after disease becomes 

 unravelled. 



CRITICISM OF DIATHESIS. 



This word was used to indicate a constitutional 

 condition derived from the parents, rendering a 

 person liable to a particular disease a disease 

 developed from the tissues conveyed to him by 

 his parentage. Lecturers spent many hours in 

 elaborating details of such diatheses as the 

 strumous, cancerous, syphilitic, gouty, rheu- 

 matic, nervous, plethoric, lymphatic, and so on. 

 But after a time it became evident that the types 

 described as characteristic were those in which a 

 particular disease or habit had already com- 



