102' 



liabilities to diseases in transmission from and through both 

 parents. The real point of practical importance is that we 

 should look for indications of the existence in the same 

 person of two or more morbid conditions or dispositions, 

 such as may be derived from both parents, or from several 

 ancestors, and suit our treatment accordingly." 1 As in the 

 temperaments, so also in the diatheses, we seldom or never 

 meet with them in their ideally-perfect form or condition. 

 One may appear especially prominent, but when we recollect 

 and strive to appreciate the action and interaction of all the 

 causes which produce the individuality of man, we shall not 

 be surprised to find evidences of the mingling of diatheses 

 in every individual an admixture as infinite in degree as in 

 variety. 



Of the remaining diatheses, I may just mention the state 

 in which premature senility, as evidenced by such general 

 tissue-degenerations as atrophies, arcus senilis, white hair, 

 pale blood, and general failure of nutrition, amounts to a 

 disease : the heritable condition of skin associated with 

 certain affections, as psoriasis, eczema, acne and lupus ; 

 deficiency of nerve tone, which although not a diathesis in 

 itself, yet complicates them all; the hepatic diathesis, as 

 revealed by the subsequent appearance of xanthelasma 

 occurring in various parts of the body in an adult; the 

 diathesis denoted by chilblains, and that in which the 

 vascular system generally is very feeble, resulting in liability 

 to venous congestion in exposed and distant parts, even to 

 gangrene of the extremities. 2 



Such, at least, are some of the morbid proclivities 

 evidenced by patients in daily practice, and which are 

 potential agents in producing and maintaining man's indi- 

 1 Sir James Paget. 2 Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. 



