The laws of health / by W.H. Corfield.

  • William Henry Corfield
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The laws of health / by W.H. Corfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rheumatism, another intermittent fever or ague, and another—nothing at all ; the reason of all this being that each man was attacked in his weakest point. There are certain diseases, as small-pox, scarlet fever, enteric (typhoid) fever, and other communicable diseases, one attack of which confers, as a rule, im- munity from the same disease for the rest of life ; but there are occasionally persons who are attacked by one of these diseases twice, three times, and even oftener. These persons afford a remarkable instance of an idiosyncrasy, and one that cannot be accounted for in any way—one, too, that it is of the greatest importance to notice, as we shall see in the chapter on small-pox. § 5. Heredity.—Just as external resemblances and even sometimes accidental malformations descend in families, so do resemblances in the construction and working of the internal organs, and thus it happens that tendencies towards certain kinds of disease are frequently hereditary. This is most marked, perhaps, in the case of nervous diseases—such as epilepsy, St. Vitus’s dance, and the various forms of madness—* not that any one nervous disease is necessarily here- ditary, but the general tendency to such diseases. So too, consumption, the great plague of temperate climates, is undoubtedly hereditary, although it does not follow that a person belongs to a consumptive family because he is attacked with this disease. Many fall victims to it from being placed in conditions suitable to its development, and especially from living in bad air or in damp houses. Gout is another good example of a hereditary disease. It may be acquired
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