HEREDITY IN PHYSIOLOGY, IN MEDICINE, ETC. 33? 



cal and furious fits ; the second, a hypochondriac, was re- 

 duced by brooding inaction to the state of a mere automa- 

 ton ; the third was peculiar from his excessive irascibility, 

 and his disposition to suicide ; the fourth was distinguished 

 by great capabilities for the arts, but was timid and suspi- 

 cious by nature. 



Scrofula, cancer, tubercles, syphilis, gout, arthritis, tetter, 

 and generally those chronic constitutional complaints which 

 take the name of diatheses and cachexies, very often descend 

 from parents to children. The heredity of these diseased 

 states is almost as common and positive as that of nervous 

 affections. Tt may also be asserted, though the case is 

 much more unusual, that disorders of the skin, especially 

 psoriasis, may be transmitted. 



Nothing can be more dramatically interesting than the 

 evolution of these hereditary maladies, which, lodged in the 

 system of children in the form of germs, of mere predis- 

 positions, sometimes are destroyed utterly by a combina- 

 tion of fortunate conditions and precautions, sometimes be- 

 gin at once their destined destructive work, sometimes lurk 

 in secret for years, and are aroused some day, pitiless and 

 terrible, under the goad of various stimulations. Thus 

 age, sex, temperament, practices, habits, conditions of 

 health, the surrounding medium, all take part in the de- 

 velopment of diseased action, coming from heredity. In- 

 sanity is rare in childhood ; epilepsy most commonly breaks 

 out in early youth. Hysteria, scrofula, rachitis, and tu- 

 bercles, make their appearance in childhood and youth ; 

 gout, gravel, calculi, baldness, cancer, are hereditary con- 

 ditions manifest in the adult. Women are more liable to 

 insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria, than men. The latter, to 

 balance the scale, are much oftener attacked by gout, grav- 

 el, and stone. The nervous temperament facilitates the 

 appearance of neuroses, the lymphatic-sanguine tempera- 

 ment that of arthritis and tetter, the lymphatic that of 



