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according to Rokitansky and other observers, amyloid 

 disease, and especially amyloid disease of the liver, has been 

 known to occur actually as a congenital condition in cases 

 of hereditary syphilis. There is therefore no reason why a 

 predisposition to amyloid disease of the liver or other organs 

 should not be inherited. If not a product of the scrofulous 

 diathesis, amyloid disease is certainly the resultant of a pre- 

 existing condition closely allied to it. 



I may dismiss the consideration of fatty infiltration, or 

 fatty degeneration of the liver, in a few words. Both may be 

 regarded as modifications of the natural fat-forming process ; 

 in the first case being brought to the liver-cells with the 

 blood ; in the second, originating in the interior of the liver- 

 cells themselves, from the albumen belonging to them. The 

 first partakes of the nature of that general condition which 

 we term obesity or corpulence, a predisposition or tendency 

 to which is handed down from one generation to another ; 

 the second partakes of the nature of metamorphosis fatty 

 atrophy of the cells, resulting from the non-restoration of 

 albumen expended in the preparation of fat. This latter 

 condition is also hereditary, and may involve other organs 

 than the liver, as the heart, etc. 



Passing now from degenerative diseases to functional 

 derangements of the liver, I may here briefly allude to chole- 

 lithiasis or gall-stones, icterus or jaundice, hepatic congestion, 

 and "biliousness," which are all more or less hereditary. 

 Fauconneau-Dufresne asserts that gall-stones are frequently 

 hereditary, basing his assertion on the experience of the bath 

 physicians at Vichy, who have so many opportunities of 

 observing every kind of liver disease. Be this as it may, we 

 cannot say that gall-stones, or a predisposition to them, are 

 not hereditary, simply because from our inexperience or 



