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Ziemssen : Dr. Huntington, of Long Island, with his 

 father and grandfather (also physicians) says he has observed 

 entire families of choreic persons, in which the disease was 

 propagated until once a generation had been overleapt, when 

 the hereditary disposition in that family ceased. In these 

 cases the chorea began between the twentieth and fortieth 

 year of life ; attacked men and women alike, and usually 

 led to mental disease, often associated with suicidal tenden- 

 cies, and finally to death. That chorea may be congenital 

 i.e., transmitted hereditarily, admits of no doubt, although 

 the occasions of such actual transmission may be regarded as 

 comparatively rare. Fox has recorded a case in which the 

 child, a male, was born six weeks before the period, and 

 from the first hour of his life he suffered from violent choreic 

 movements, which gradually developed into epilepsy in his 

 third year ; after which he had no further attacks, but his 

 speaking and walking were defective up to this thirteenth 

 year. Richter also mentions chorea as occurring congenitally 

 in the case of two girls whose mothers had been frightened 

 when far advanced in pregnancy. From their birth the 

 children suffered with chronic spasms, which ceased during 

 sleep, and eventually disappeared almost entirely. 



That chorea is often mimetically contagious, is also a well- 

 established fact : thus Leube saw two girls, of the ages of 

 sixteen and seventeen, hysterically predisposed, who acquired 

 chorea in consequence of intercourse with another girl, aged 

 twelve, who had the disease. Bricheteau also mentions the 

 following interesting case : A girl was admitted into a ward 

 in the Hopital Necker where there were girls who were 

 hysterical, and who had formerly been the subjects of chorea, 

 and within six days eight other patients in the same ward 

 where taken with chorea. The further spread of the disease 



