HEREDITY IN PHYSIOLOGY, IN MEDICINE, ETC. 337 
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. It 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 
