822 GENERAL DISORDERS OF NUTRITION. 



parents. As we know that many of the bodily and n ental traits of 

 parents are transmitted to their progeny, it will not seem extraordi- 

 nary that children of feeble, sickly fathers or mothers should have a 

 greater tendency to disease than those whose progenitors are vigorous 

 and healthy ; but we are totally unable to account for the fact that 

 scrofula is also very prevalent in the children of parents who are too 

 closely related to one another by blood. It must be added, moreover, 

 that it is not every child of scrofulous, sickly, feeble, or superannuated 

 parentage, and not all of the issue of the marriages of near relatives, 

 who suffer from congenital scrofula. Indeed, many children thus born 

 are healthy, and without any decided tendency to disease ; and, on 

 the other hand, this malady often attacks the offspring of parents 

 entirely exempt from the action of any of the above predisposing 

 agencies. 



Acquired scrofula generally arises as a result of pernicious in- 

 fluences which have impeded the healthy development of the system 

 during the first years of life. First of all, among these, stands im- 

 proper nourishment ; a coarse diet, containing but little nutriment in 

 comparison with its bulk, being very properly held in especially evil 

 repute. The earlier this injudicious feeding of an infant commences, 

 so much the greater is the danger that it will become scrofulous; 

 hence, the children fed on pap furnish a very important contingent to 

 the army of scrofulous persons. Want of fresh air and exercise exerts 

 an influence as baneful as that of improper food. Hirscli has collected 

 a large number of facts, proving that, in foundling hospitals, orphan 

 asylums, boarding-schools, factories, and similar institutions, the con- 

 tinual abode in a badly-ventilated atmosphere, saturated with steam, 

 and poisoned by animal effluvia and the products of putrefaction, is in 

 the highest degree favorable to the development of scrofula ; and that, 

 according to the experience of these institutions where there is no 

 lack of cleanliness, good food, and warm clothing, the above pernicious 

 agents alone suffice to induce the disease. 



It springs most frequently, however, from the combined effects of 

 all these different anti-hygienic influences. Although we have declared 

 the chief cause of scrofula to be the impairment of the normal develop- 

 ment of the system during childhood, through the action of the above- 

 mentioned noxious agencies, yet it must be added that, in prisons, poor- 

 houses, and workhouses, the disorder also breaks out among adults 

 subjected to the simultaneous effects of bad nourishment and want of 

 fresh air. The development or reestablishment of scrofula is, like- 

 wise, a not unfrequent sequel to certain acute and chronic diseases ; 

 and this is all the more likely to be the case, the younger and the 

 more undeveloped the subject of disease happens to be. Among 



