Consumption

The genos of bhis disease camiot obtain a foofhold uutil the resistive powers af the tissues have been rednced. TIhto muKt be i!ot oulytheseed, but the bou. Tliis impaired power of resistance may be the resnlt of heredity, and this influence iu the oausatión of disease ia seldom showu to botter advantage than in the history of eonsnmption. There have been instances in which a single case introdnoed into a long and sound ancestry has vitiated the stock forever. How unfortunato that sucli matters are so little considered in inarrying and giving in marriage ! It is not that the disease is inherited, but the vulnerable tissues, the feeble resistive powers, render the offspring an easy prey to the ubiquitous bacillus. This weakness of ten shows itself by a tendency to becomo ill from slight causes, a sickliness not by any means to be conf ounded with merely a lack of robustness or strength. Ono organ or part of the body, frequently the mucous membrane, is usually more prone to become affected, and the beginning of the disease can often be traced to an attack of some slight ailment. Not only the children of consumptive parents may show these characteristics, but also those of parents generally enfcebled, or whose ages are widely sepa:;.ted, or who are closely related by blood, or of a mother who has previously borne a nnmber in quick succession. Even when heredity is sound the same condition is 8ometimes induced by coddling, by improper feeding, by attacks of acute disease or by want and distress. In growing children abad carriage of body may act injuriously by contracting and deforming the chest. The stooped position which boys sometimea assume in bicycle riding should be discouraced for