Epidemics. 145 



but the particular hereditary vice or kinds of constitutions 

 gendered by such habits and transmitted to their posterity, 

 such as certain forms of dyspepsia, induced by epicureanism 

 or 'gormandizing; unnatural thirst, as, when adult life is 

 attained, from parents drinking ardent spirits, etc. ; mental 

 excitability and uncontrollableness of temper in the offspring, 

 induced by over study and loss of sleep in a parent, or, 

 what is often a much more common cause, the indulgence 

 in youth of uncontrolled self-will and excessive liberty or 

 power; habitual idleness and dilatory habits, entailing on 

 the offspring, from want of food and force of example, 

 harmless, or else cunning and inenergetic children, in whom 

 systematic work is almost beyond the power of endurance. 

 All these, and many more, resulting from moral defection, 

 entail suffering, trial, and early-exhausted constitutions, 

 which rob the children in man and woman-hood of health 

 and energy to a great extent, and, if not actually shortening 

 their days, in utility limiting their labour, to nearly half its 

 proper and natural value, to themselves and their offspring. 



The moral and vicious habits, in relation to health and 

 disease, may not be improperly called entailed endemic or 

 hereditary diseases ; and in many respects they are the 

 most inveterate of all diseases. They sap the vital powers, 

 and are a leaven of disease, which damps and blights the 

 primary vital impress continuously, and more certainly than 

 any other endemic form of disease to which our race is 

 subject, from the cradle to the grave. 



If, therefore, treating upon the subject of epidemic and 

 endemic diseases, a wider range is given than is usual, it 

 must be borne in mind that this outline of epidemics, etc., 

 has for its object the tracing out of external agencies in 

 relation to vital power, and not the internal or inherent 

 force which implants in matter a self-interdependent power, 

 which is, in co-relation of elements and their interdependent 



10 



