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element, might be here noticed, but I shall allude to some 

 of these affections hereafter. I therefore, maintain, that 

 in all diseases of the kidney and genito-urinary tract there 

 is a pre-exisiting heritable disposition of tissue and organ, 

 whether of late or early descent, and that this view is well 

 supported by facts in every-day practice, if they are only 

 recognised and appreciated aright. 



Diseases of the Chylo-poietic System. The mere enumera- 

 tion of these diseases would monopolise almost all the 

 space at my disposal for their consideration. I shall, 

 therefore, content myself with some brief general remarks 

 as to how they are affected by heredity. If there is any 

 truth in my previous statements regarding the diseases 

 already considered, and if my arguments have anything to 

 recommend them, it follows, by analogy if I have estab- 

 lished as a fact that pathological processes are subject to 

 heredity because the physiological and psychological nature 

 of man is undoubtedly inherited, although subject to indi- 

 vidual modifications that what is true of one system must 

 be true of all, and that as every tissue and organ in the 

 human body bears the brand of heredity in the discharge 

 of their every function in health, so must they also in 

 disease, which I regard as functional derangement or 

 degenerative change in tissues or organs which have been 

 inherited. Again I must guard myself from being mis- 

 understood. I do not mean that the diseases of ancestors 

 or parents must inevitably be transmitted to their children 

 (although such cases occur, perhaps, more frequently than 

 we wot of) ; but what I contend for is that the physiological 

 and psychological natures of ancestors and parents being 

 handed down to their children, with certain individual 

 modifications, it must follow that the brands of disease 



