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Disease germs pass into each of us every day ; but the soil 

 must be suitable for them to germinate or they produce no 

 effect ; even when they do germinate the product varies 

 according to the soil, and, as Sir James Paget says : " The 

 study of this soil this living soil is yet more necessary 

 in respect of diseases which come in part, or wholly, by 

 inheritance : for it is in each as personal and distinct as any 

 other constituent of personal character, and the study of it 

 must be intimately personal, with an exact analysis of every 

 disposition to disease" This brief quotation expresses my 

 argument most pithily, for if it means anything it surely 

 means that the individuality of each human unit differs 

 from that of every other, and that by reason of this 

 individual differentiation inherited and acquired every 

 individual is variously affected by morbid processes and 

 influences. Would that this great fundamental truth were 

 more frequently recognised and more highly appreciated by 

 the members of our profession, for in no other way can we 

 get rid of that bane of modern practice routine treatment 

 which is neither more nor less than unworthy empiricism ! 

 What is meant by predisposition ? It may be defined as 

 a sort of neutral state, between health and a state of func- 

 tional derangement and disease, consisting in a tendency 

 or liability to, without the actual existence of, derangement 

 or disease. It might be subdivided under four heads viz. : 

 I. Hereditary ; II. ^tal ; III. Sexual ; and IV. Acquired. 

 With regard to the first, as children resemble their parents, 

 physically, mentally, and morally, so their constitutional 

 peculiarities, and the morbid tendencies growing out of 

 them are also unquestionably inherited. As a general rule, 

 diseases themselves are not inherited (as we shall see 

 presently), but only those structural or constitutional peculi- 



