regarded as indicating in broad characters the sum of certain 

 types of individual differentiation, and for all ordinary 

 purposes they are explicit enough, as they are easily under- 

 stood, and without embodying the whole truth, are yet 

 verified by experience. At the same time, it must not be 

 forgotten that every individual presents such a mingling of 

 temperaments, diatheses, etc., that for anything beyond the 

 broadest outlines we must seek still deeper, and further 

 backwards into the long descent of constitutional peculiarities. 

 Whether this bilious predisposition be included under the 

 name of temperament or of diathesis, or of both combined, 

 the fact is, that instead of being as much a distinct type as 

 the other diatheses, it is often rather a modification of, 

 or co-existing with, others. Thus it is frequently associated 

 with the gouty or strumous diatheses, and with the nervous 

 and lymphatic temperaments, and, as Dr. Milner Fothergill 

 says, to recognise such combination in practice, and in the 

 selection of remedial agents, is often more practically 

 useful than an elaborate physical diagnosis, and is especially 

 useful when physical diagnosis is not readily attainable. 

 Whether also the liver, stomach, spleen, pancreas, intestines, 

 or nervous system, be primarily involved in the production 

 of those attacks usually denominated " bilious," the fact is, 

 that they depend, as a rule, upon constitutional peculiarities 

 of viscus, tissue, membrane, cell, vessel, or nerve, which 

 evidence a predisposition, not only inherited, but also 

 transmissible. I have known cases in which these so-called 

 bilious attacks have characterised parents and children 

 through several generations, and the same fact has doubtless 

 been frequently observed by others ; and, curiously enough, 

 I have seen individuals in whom the bilious temperament 

 seemed to preponderate, but who had never experienced a 



