162 LECTURE VI. 



is to assume what has at all times created the greatest 

 confusion, namely, that we have in it to deal with a fluid 

 in itself independent, but upon which the great mass of 

 tissues more or less depend. The greater number of the 

 humoro-pathological doctrines are based upon the sup- 

 position, that certain changes which have taken place in 

 the blood are more or less persistent ; -and just in the 

 very instance where 'these doctrines have practically ex- 

 ercised the greatest influence, in the theory, namely, of 

 chronic dyscrasiee, it is usually conceived that the change 

 is continuous, and that by inheritance peculiar altera- 

 tions in the blood may be transmitted from generation 

 to generation, and be perpetuated. 



This is, I think, the fundamental mistake of the humo- 

 ralists, the real hinge upon which their errors turn. Not 

 that I doubt at all that a change in the composition of 

 the blood may pertinaciously continue, or that it may 

 propagate itself from generation to generation, but I do 

 not believe that it can be propagated in the blood itself 

 and there persist, and that the blood is the real seat of 

 the dyscrasia. 



My cellulo-pathological views differ from the humoro- 

 pathological ones essentially in this, that I do not regard 

 the blood as a permanent tissue, in itself independent, 

 regenerating and propagating itself out of itself, but as 

 in a state of constant dependence upon other parts. We 

 need only apply the same conclusions which are univer- 

 sally admitted to be true as regards the dependence of 

 the blood upon the absorption of new nutritive matters 

 from the stomach, to the tissues of the body themselves 

 also. When the drunkard's dyscrasia is spoken of, no- 

 body of course imagines that every one who has once 

 been drunk labours under a permanent alcoholic dyscra- 

 sia, but the common opinion is, that, when continually 

 fresh quantities of alcohol are ingested, continually fresh 



