72 



textures, or, at most, analogous textures fabricated from the 

 same materials by tike processes." Not only in epidemic 

 diseases, but in all diseases, whether acute or chronic, it is a 

 matter of universal and daily observation that the pheno- 

 mena and results of disease are very much modified by the 

 difference of individual constitutions : and to this difference 

 must be attributed the special character given to the same 

 malady in different individuals, as, owing to this cause, we 

 find the same diseases, under precisely similar treatment, at 

 the same time exhibit phenomena, progress, and events 

 entirely different. 



We have already seen that the differentiation of indi- 

 viduals intimately concerns not only their physical nature 

 and functions, but also their mental qualities and moral 

 character. Let me briefly inquire how this individuality 

 affects the morbid processes, whether functional or organic^ 

 to which we are all more or less liable, and to some of 

 which, in the natural course of events, we must all succumb. 

 As, in general terms, all that we have and are we owe to 

 heredity, with the exception of the modifying influences to- 

 which we are subjected in "the struggle for existence," so,, 

 as each of us has inherited a certain physical, mental, 

 and moral constitution, whether healthy or otherwise, and' 

 differing from that of every other individual, it follows that 

 this individual differentiation, physical, mental, and moral, 

 predisposes us, each one more or less, to certain morbid 

 processes and influences, differing in each as to symptoms, 

 intensity, course, and mode of termination. As, in fact, the 

 physiological and psychological nature of every individual 

 inherited and acquired differs from that of every 

 other, so, too, must every individual differ from every other 

 as to his pathological predisposition. For example : 



