INNATE AND ACQUIRED DISEASE 259 



disturbance of the time-relations of the developing organism : 

 and this may be due (a) to an intrinsic weakness or dispro- 

 portion in some components of the complex mosaic of inheritance, 

 in which case it is likely to be transmitted ; or (b) to some dis- 

 turbance of the nutritive and other conditions during ante-natal 

 life, in which case it is not likely to be transmitted. 



To sum up in the words of a well-known pathologist, " the 

 term ' acquired ' should be applied only to what arises in the 

 individual life-time — from the period of development onwards 

 — under the influence of external conditions ; and never to 

 what arises, as we say, spontaneously — that is, from rudiments 

 already present in the germ " (Ernst Ziegler, 1886, p. 13). 



All discussion about "congenital," " pregenital," and "post- 

 genital " heredity or inheritance is writing on the sand — mere 

 verbiage and confusion of thought. The inheritance is the organisa- 

 tion of the fertilised ovum — nothing less, nothing more. That the 

 developing offspring may be infected or poisoned at an earlier 

 or later stage, before birth or after birth, has nothing to do with 

 inheritance. The word " congenital " is properly used to denote 

 what is manifested by the offspring at birth ; the " congenital " 

 character may be hereditary — i.e. due to the parental germ-cells — 

 or it may have been acquired in ante-natal life. But the word is 

 also used by many to imply an innate constitutional character 

 which is part of the inheritance in contrast to a character which 

 has been adventitiously acquired. Therefore, as far as possible 

 (without undue purism or pedantry), the word should be dropped 

 altogether. 



§ 3. Are Acquired Diseases transmissible? 



It seems certain that diseased conditions may arise from 

 germinal variations appropriately stimulated, as in gout, rheu- 

 matism,* obesity, and insanity ; it seems equally certain that 

 diseased conditions may be induced from without by peculiarities 



* Even if gout and rheumatism (in its acute form) be complicated by 

 the presence of specific microbes, we may regard the microbe as the 

 appropriate stimulus to an idiopathic predisposition. 



