The  question  of  predisposition.  We  judge  from  the  context  that  Ml
PhilUps  questions  the  actuality  of  an  hereditary  predisposition  to  scrofiili
We  cannot  say  that  we  participate  in  his  doubts,  although  he  is  quit
correct  in  stating  that  it  is  difficult  to  test  numerically.  It  may  even  bi
doubted  if  the  proofs  can  ever  be  derived  so  clearly  from  statistical  ifl
quiries  as  from  ratiocination  on  observed  facts.  We  see  the  children  o
highly  scrofulous  parents,  who  are  not  simply  of  a  weakly  constitotioii
but  who  are  truly  scrofulous,  and  who  become  so,  although  placed  nude
the  most  favorable  circumstances  for  prophylaxis  and  the  preservation  (
health.  Such  families  come  occasionally  under  the  notice  of  most  prKt
tioners,  and  furnish  extreme  instances  of  the  law  of  hereditary  predispositioi
This  predisposition  to  scrofulous  deposit  has  its  analogue  in  the  hereditn
predisposition  to  arthritic  deposit.  As  in  the  highly  scrofulous  famihes,  i
with  highly  gouty  families,  we  find  the  hereditary  predisposition  develops  d
disease,  in  spite  of  the  most  careful  prophylaxis.  This  is  a  matter  of  bft
We  have  ourselves  carefully  noted  it.  But  in  all  these  examples  of  prediip
sition  to  a  particular  family  of  diseases,  whether  they  be  the  neurotic,  tl
arthritic,  or  the  strumous,  the  predisposition  varies  in  every  degree  fro
the  two  extremes.  The  scrofulous  predisposition  may  be  so  slight  at
be  developed  into  scrofula  when  the  causes  which  excite  it  into  actiri
are  so  powerful  that  they  would  develop  like  diseases  in  an  untainted  oo
stitution ;  or  the  proclivity  to  scrofulous  deposit  may  differ  in  difoc
organs  in  the  same  individual,  so  that,  although  in  childhood  t
lymphatic  glands  may  escape  all  disease,  at  puberty  the  lungs  will  be  i
cvitably  involved.
