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x.]   DISEASE.   171

the hereditary tendencies in each person to .disease being usually very various, it is by no means always that useful forecasts can be made concerning the health of the future issue of any couple.


CONSUMPTION.

General Remarks.-The frequency of consumption in England being so great that one in at least every six or seven persons dies of it, and the fact that it usually appears early in life, and is therefore the less likely to be forestalled by any other disease, render it an appropriate subject for statistics. The fact that it may be acquired, although there has been no decided hereditary tendency towards it, introduces no serious difficulty, being more or less balanced by the opposite fact that it may be withstood by sanitary precautions although a strong tendency exists. . Neither does it seem worth while to be hypercritical and to dwell overmuch on the different opinions held by experts as to what constitutes consumption. The ordinary symptoms are patent enough, and are generally recognized ; so we may be content at first with lax definitions. At the same time, no one can be more strongly impressed than myself with the view that in proportion as we desire to improve our statistical work, so we must be increasingly careful to divide our material into truly homogeneous groups, in order that all the cases contained in the same group shall be alike in every important particular, differing only in petty details. This is far more important than adding to the number