DIATHESIS. 275 



and development if the bony case were expansive 

 as in a normal child. 



Cleft-palate may accompany marasmus; both 

 may be due to similar ill development, or the cleft- 

 palate may cause difficulties in feeding the child 

 and lead to marasmus. Congenital collapse of lung 

 may lead to patent foramen ovale in the heart. 



The principle has long been admitted that the 

 tendencies in the development of a child or adult 

 may be studied by determining the diathesis, as it 

 is called. Certain things are observed in the man, 

 and then experience enables us to say that such 

 and such will be his constitutional tendencies. 



When we observe in the individual that certain 

 functions are of one kind, we infer therefrom the 

 kind of other functions. Thus, Mr. F. Treves * gives 

 the following description of the strumous diathesis, 

 and shows such persons liable to certain pathological 

 conditions : " The physiognomy of scrofula, the type 

 of face and form supposed to be indicative of the 

 disease, have for ages been subjects upon which 

 writers have loved to exercise their imaginative 

 and descriptive powers" (p. 83). "The general 

 features of this class are sufficiently well marked to 

 enable us to separate them into two divisions, that, 

 for want of better words, may be known by the old 

 terms the sanguine and the phlegmatic types of 

 scrofula" (p. 85). 



" The sanguine type. Individuals placed in this 

 class are credited with these features, and they 

 refer more particularly to 'children. They are tall, 

 * " Scrofula and Gland Disease," 1883. 



