Hereditary Diseases of Sheep and Figs. 
35 
comparatively favourable terminations occurs, the case gradually 
becomes worse, a slow sub-acute inflammation being usually esta- 
blislu'd, attended by effusion of more tubercular matter and pus. 
Respiration and circulation are thus still more obstructed, the 
breathing is much accelerated, the pulse weak and scarcely per- 
ceptible, whilst pus and vitiated mucus gravitate from the 
nostrils, and serous efTusions appear in various dependent parts. 
The glands about the throat and neck become hard and swollen, 
diarrh(ra or dysentery speedily reduces the quantity of the 
blood, emaciation and debility go on rapidly increasing, and 
death ensues from the impure quality and deficient quantity 
of the blood. As in all other scrofulous complaints, tuberculous 
matter is, on post mortem examinations, found distributed more 
or less generally through the body, but especially in the glands 
and on the mucous surfaces. The upper and left parts of 
the lungs are those which are most usually affected — exactly 
the reverse of what obtains with ordinary inflammation, which 
most commonly attacks the lower parts and the light lung. As 
we have already adverted at some length to the hereditary nature 
of the scrofulous habit of body, it is scarcely necessary to add 
any further remarks concerning the hereditary nature of con- 
sumption, which is merely one of the prominent forms in which 
that habit manifests itself. It may not, however, be uninter- 
esting to exhibit the following table, given by Dr. Cotton,* as 
illustrating, in the human subject, " the influence of hereditary 
predisposition in a thousand cases of phthisis :" — 
Predisposed. 
Not 
Predisposed. 
Father 
consumptive. 
Mother . 
consumptive. 
Both Parents 
consumptive. 
Brothers or Sisters 
consumptive. 
M. 
F. 
M. 
F. 
M. 
F. 
M. and F. 
M. 
F. 
59 
53 
40 
62 
15 
12 
12G 
393 
240 
367 633 
According to this table somewhat more than a third of the 
cases of consumption met Avith in ordinary practice owe their 
development to inherent hereditary causes. This is probably, 
however, rather a low estimate, for tbe parents registered as 
" predisposed" included those only in which the disease had 
presented itself in an obvious and decided manner; while there 
* On the Nature, Symptoms, and Treatment of Consumption, by Richard P. 
Cotton, M.D. London, 1852, p. 61. 
D 2 
