RHEUMATISM. 237 



fancifully as an insanity of the muscles,' is a 

 nervous disease which exhibits sometimes a close 

 relation of descent to insanity or epilepsy ; and in 

 children descended from families in which there has 

 been much insanity we meet occasionally with diseased 

 phenomena that seem to be hybrids between chorea 

 and epilepsy, or between chorea and insanity, and 

 which pass finally into one of these more definite ruts 

 of convulsive action." * 



I think I have now proved sufficiently clearly the 

 relationship between rheumatic and nervous disease. 



I need hardly say the transmutability of all other 

 constitutional degenerations hereditarily transmitted 

 could be equally clearly demonstrated, but I shall not 

 here essay the task. My only excuse for interpolating 

 the last few tedious pages is the desire to point out 

 how nearly allied are so apparently widely separated 

 degenerate conditions as rheumatism and insanity, 

 and to rid the mind of the reader of any lurking 

 suspicion that the family histories given at pages 49 

 and 231, may be merely those of specially unfortu- 

 nate families, in which the appearance of several 

 diseases were mere coincidences, instead of the vary- 

 ing signs of an all-pervading decay in the family 

 stock. 



Rheumatism is in itself a most severe and painful 



affection, and although in a large proportion of cases 



not directly fatal, it is responsible for a very large 



number of deaths from heart disease, kidney disease, 



* " Responsibility in Mental Disease." 



