CHAPTER XXI. 



SOME OF THE LESS IMPORTANT HEREDITARY AFFECTIONS. 



MANY other pathological characters besides those 

 noticed in the previous pages are transmitted heredi- 

 tarily. Most of them have already been mentioned 

 incidentally, in one or other of the foregoing chapters, 

 but perhaps a few words might be said upon two or 

 three of the more important of them. 



ASTHMA. This very common and distressing malady 

 is distinctly hereditary. Observers differ as to the 

 proportion of cases in which hereditary taint is to be 

 found, but it may be taken that at least 50 per 

 cent, of all cases occurring arise from hereditary pre- 

 disposition. 



The disorder is much more frequently met with 

 in men than in women, about 80 per cent, of all 

 persons attacked being males. 



The asthmatic are generally thin and gaunt, with 

 round shoulders and a peculiar circular, or barrel- 

 shaped chest. This distorted form of chest is often 

 inherited, and seen in infants the children of asthmatic 

 parents, among whom it is not at all strange to meet 

 with the spasmodic attacks of the disease itself. 



