173 



whether this facility to hepatic disturbance would be found 

 in association exclusively, or even generally, with any 

 particular cast of the features, or recognisable peculiarities 

 in the general frame." Be this as it may, it appears absolu- 

 tely necessary that we should recognise a hepatic diathesis^ 

 the possession of which is usually characterised by oft- 

 recurring attacks of biliousness, and that like the majority, 

 if not all, of the diatheses, this also is hereditary. It is thus 

 advisable to distinguish between the bilious temperament 

 and the bilious or hepatic diathesis the former being a 

 question of physiology and race, if not of diathesis also ; 

 the latter signifying an easily recognised morbid proclivity, 

 which is pathological and unquestionably hereditary. 



I have now considered the principal degenerative diseases 

 and functional derangements of the liver, with a view to 

 tracing the influence of heredity in each, and we have seen 

 in the degenerative forms of disease referred to, that they 

 each depend upon a pre-existing disposition which is con- 

 stitutional, and may be transmitted from parents to children, 

 or from one generation to another. We have also seen that 

 the various functional disorders of the liver are subject to 

 the same influences. In the cases of some of the diseases 

 and derangements alluded to, the evidence may not be so 

 strong as in those of others; but in making, so far as I 

 know, the first attempt to show that the pathological pro- 

 cesses, no less than the physiological and psychological 

 processes in man are subject to heredity, and in viewing for 

 the first time the entire field of human diseases with that 

 object, some allowance should, I think, be made, if I have 

 been unable to prove my argument in every case alike, 

 especially as the entire subject is comparatively new and 

 hitherto unworked. Here and there the evidence is positive 



