io 3 



viduality by hereditary transmission. As Dr. Ord says : " In 

 that analysis of the Kpa<m of the individual which must 

 furnish the interpretation of much of his behaviour in 

 illness, the accurate estimation of many combined influences, 

 native and accessory, has been called the stumbling-block of 

 practice. It may better be called the touchstone of practical 

 skill. That physician does well who carries with him a 

 mental picture of some such perfect human animal as Galen 

 has imagined, and who marks on the diagram, with his 

 patient before him, the lines of original shortcoming, of 

 development, of warp, of injury, of degeneration, so as to 

 arrive at some clear sight of the outcome or resultant of all 

 in the present organisation and reactions of that patient." 

 In other words, that physician does best who most carefully 

 appreciates the physiological, psychological, and pathological 

 peculiarities of each of his patients peculiarities which 

 render each patient different from any other, and which 

 constitute the elements of individuality in every atom of 

 humanity. 



It should be distinctly understood, however, that such 

 predisposing causes of disease as temperaments and idio- 

 syncrasies also those typical proclivities which I have just 

 considered under the term diatheses however influential as 

 factors in modifying morbid processes in individuals, receive 

 their force and character from heredity, and may thus be 

 said to be merely effects of hereditary predisposition 

 specialised in certain sets of individuals : but hereditary 

 predisposition means far more than the temperaments, 

 idiosyncrasies, and diatheses, for it not only includes all 

 these, but also implies that a morbid predisposition which 

 has arisen in some individual, whether ancestral or parental, 

 has, by heredity, been transmitted to his offspring, and 



