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hardness, softness, elasticity, etc., and sensations of tem- 

 perature, as of heat and cold, are alike subject to, and 

 governed by, the law of heredity. The relative sensibility 

 of different families to tickling is well known ; in fact, every 

 form of anaesthesia or hypersesthesia of the skin is markedly 

 hereditary. All this, however, is more physiological than 

 pathological ; but with regard to the latter I may mention 

 cases related by Lucas, which illustrate how the sense of 

 touch, when exaggerated or neutralised, ' may affect patho- 

 logical conditions, and how abnormal sensitiveness to heat 

 or cold may be transmitted. A woman whose tactile 

 sensibility was so exalted that for her the slightest hurt was 

 an agony, married a man endowed in the highest degree 

 with the opposite quality. He did not lack intelligence, but 

 his heart and his skin were impassible. A daughter was 

 born to them, and she is as insensible to external pain as her 

 father himself. We have seen her endure, without com- 

 plaint, and even without appearing to notice it, pain which 

 would have been very acute for ourselves. 



A family from the south, says the same author, who was 

 acquainted with the persons, came to Paris some time ago. 

 Several of the children were born in Paris ; but those born 

 there, as well as those brought there from the south, were in 

 childhood extremely sensitive to cold. One of the daughters 

 married a man from the north, who is insensible to cold, 

 provided it is not excessive. The child born of this union 

 is more sensitive to cold than even its mother ; like her, he 

 shivers at the slightest fall of temperature, and so soon as 

 the air becomes cold, he is afraid of leaving the house. 

 The insurmountable repulsion which some persons have for 

 touching certain objects : as silk, velvet, mother-of-pearl, 

 cork, peaches, etc., is well-known, and cases might easily be 



