Chap. XIV. AT CORRESPONDING PERIODS. 55 



So with deafness, two brothers, their father and paternal grand- 

 father, all became deaf at the age of forty. 40 



Esquirol gives several striking instances of insanity coming on 

 at the same age, as that of a grandfather, father, and son, who all 

 committed suicide near their fiftieth year. Many other cases could 

 be given, as of a whole family who became insane at the age of forty. 41 

 Other cerebral affections sometimes follow the same rule, — for 

 instance, epilepsy and apoplexy. A woman died of the latter 

 disease when sixty-three years old ; one of her daughters at forty- 

 three, and the other at sixty-seven : the latter had twelve children, 

 who all died from tubercular meningitis. 42 I mention this latter 

 case because it illustrates a frequent occurrence, namely, a change 

 in the precise nature of an inherited disease, though still affecting 

 the same organ. 



Asthma has attacked several members of the same family when 

 forty years old, and other families during infancy. The most 

 different diseases, such as angina pectoris, stone in the bladder, and 

 various affections of the skin, have appeared in successive genera- 

 tions at nearly the same age. The little finger of a man began from 

 some unknown cause to grow inwards, and the same finger in his 

 two sons began at the same age to bend inwards in a similar 

 manner. Strange and inexplicable neuralgic affections have caused 

 parents and children to suffer agonies at about the same period 

 of life. 43 



I will give only two other cases, which are interesting as 

 illustrating the disappearance as well as the appearance of disease 

 at the same age. Two brothers, their father, their paternal uncles, 

 seven cousins, and their paternal grandfather, were all similarly 

 affected by a skin-disease, called pityriasis versicolor ; " the disease, 

 strictly limited to the males of the family (though transmitted 

 through the females), usually appeared at puberty, and dis- 

 appeared at about the age of forty or forty-five years." The second 

 case is that of four brothers, who when about twelve years old 

 suffered almost every week from severe headaches, which were 

 relieved only by a recumbent position in a dark room. Their 

 father, paternal uncles, paternal grandfather, and granduncles all 

 suffered in the same way from headaches, which ceased at the age 

 of fifty-four or fifty-five in all those who lived so long. None of 

 the females of the family were affected. 44 



It is impossible to read the foregoing accounts, and the 

 many others which have been recorded, of diseases coming 



40 Sedgwick, ibid., July, 1861, p. 1863, p. 449, and July, 1863, p. 162 , 

 202. Dr. J. Steinan, ' Essay on Hereditary 



41 Piorry, p, 109 ; Prosper Lucas, Disease,' 1843, pp. 27, 34. 



torn. ii. p. 759. 44 These cases are given by Mr. 



42 Prosper Lucas, torn. ii. p. 748. Sedgwick, on the authority of Dr. H. 



43 Prosper Lucas, torn. iii. pp. 678, Stewart, in ' Med.-Chirurg. Review, 

 700, 702 ; Sedgwick, ibid., April, April, 1863, pp. 449, 477. 



