from the parents to the children, where the father or mother 

 has suffered from neuralgia, and the child has likewise been 

 subject to it." This condition, whilst necessarily associated, 

 must not be confounded with the nervous temperament from 

 which it differs materially : inasmuch as mere temperament in- 

 volves in itself no morbific predisposition, whereas the former 

 is essentially neuropathic, and signifies that every atom and 

 molecule of the nervous system bears upon it the impress 

 of a pathological condition which is inherited and indelible. 

 It might indeed be regarded as a nervous diathesis, which 

 it really is. There are also certain constitutions of mind 

 which are not only peculiar in themselves, but which 

 predispose to nervous affections, and are capable of being 

 perpetuated by heredity. Thus in one family one may find 

 but little irritability or sensibility 'prevailing, so that each 

 member may be compared to a "lake sunk between two 

 hills the wind and the storm may pass over it and not 

 ripple its surface. In another family one finds a high degree 

 of irritability and sensibility prevailing, so that one of its 

 members may be compared to a delicate tree planted on 

 some mountain top blown about by every breath of wind 

 bent before the slightest breeze, the rude blast tears it up 

 by the roots, and it withers ! " x Well, indeed, may we regard 

 Man as the sublimest and most wonderful being in the 

 universe, for in every element of his microcosm, each 

 human being differs essentially from each other, and as in 

 health, so likewise in disease ! 



Amongst those nervous diseases, a predisposition to- 

 which is undoubtedly inherited, I shall instance, in the first 

 place, hysteria. So important is this predisposition as a 

 cause of hysteria that it is capable of developing not only a 

 tendency or liability to it, but also the complete evolution of 

 1 Armstrong. 



