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has also informed me of a case of a young man, in whom 

 enuresis was complicated with aortic valvular mischief, 

 which he had undoubtedly inherited from his father, who 

 suffered from precisely the same complication! 1 I have 

 myself witnessed cases in which intermittent action of the 

 heart had been transmitted through several generations 

 also others of epistaxis, and abnormal distribution of the 

 radial artery, which had been similarly transmitted. The 

 almost specific hereditariness of haemophilia has already 

 been referred to, and it is an acknowledged fact that 

 varicose conditions of the veins are so hereditary, that the 

 predisposition has been regarded as forming a diathesis. 

 Nothnagel, in estimating the etiology of cerebral hyperaemia, 

 includes heredity as one of the factors of its production ; 

 at least, he admits the hereditariness of the apoplectic 

 habit, and what he terms " plethora universalis," of which 

 cerebral hyperaemia is only a symptom. There can be 

 little doubt, also, that the degenerative vascular changes 

 generally associated with senility, whether of the nature 

 of miliary aneurisms (Bouchard), or fatty, or atheromatous 

 deposits, and which Dr. Chepmell has graphically described 

 as " rotten vessels," are very frequently if not invariably 

 transmitted; at any rate, it must be admitted that the 

 apoplectic habit, and consequently apoplexy, characterises 

 certain families for generation after generation, and it is 

 surely fair to deduce from these facts that a strong tendency 

 to such vascular changes is assuredly inherited. What I am 

 especially anxious to enforce is, that however potent cir- 

 cumstances may be in the development of disease, there is 

 invariably a pre-existing disposition in every individual, 

 which is as personal as his features or character, and which 

 in every case will give a certain bias or tendency to the 

 1 The distinguished Arnold family affords several examples. 



