IS IT HEREDITARY?

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 64, 14 September 1908, Page 7

IS IT HEREDITARY?

"Dr Bulstrodo "lectured in t!f« Koyal Institution, London, on 'j ho Past and Future of Tuberculosis,' "

says "C.W.S." in the Pall Mull Oazetfce. "Without any derogation u> tho interest of an admirable lec.i.nv, it may fairly be said, I think, ti:uc nothing in it was quite so siguiil/aut and noteworthy as a certain most conspicuous\ommission. My' only .regret was that Dr 'Bulstrodc himself did not add ton words simply in order to make the observation that the .lecture displayed this .omission. Here we have an acknowledged expert, author ,of what must svirely be the largest treatise on tuberculosis in existence, endeavouring to compass all the main aspects of the subject before a distinguished and influential audience.

"It : Would scarcely be possible . to enumerate in the available space the many and various questions, from .the most, elementary to the most detailed, winch lie succeeded in bringing before iis^-th,e. whole modern view of infection, tlie sociological relations •of the disease, its history, .during the. past half -century, ' and that not only in our own country,, the-'appraise-inent of sanitarium results,, and so forth. Yet iri the wide range of his remarks, which, as was 'evident, luid been scrupulously selected jn. the desire to be comprehensive, 1 there was .'•not a single word as -to'' : hereditary. . Let us ' consider for a moment** what . this means. ' . . ! . '" : ' • ' " vthe>9ld view. ' : ';'\:'[.. "It would not be correct to- ■> say that tlie r okl view: of 'consumption regarded it as hereditary. ■ But • tlie view of our more immediato fathers ' was that tuberculosis is an hereditary •" degeneration, and the medical ; profession proclaimed with iio.-uncer- j tain sound the hopeless --doctrine that an almost certain doom: hung over the children of the consumptive;; . /Then, in memorable succession,! came Viller ' mm, Pasteur, and lastly ; Koch, with his discovery of the bacillus in 1882. The doctrine was then altered in its statement. It was lightly assumed (simply through what- may be called tho inertia, of belief) that variation in susceptibility were hereditary; but we are wholly/ without evidence that the hereditary factor, counts for anything substantial, even assuming that it appreciably exists 'at all. These differences, so far from being inherent, are most palpably acquired. Underfeeding 1 , alcohol, and influenza, let us say, will adequately prepare any human soul. Furthermore, we are learning that the bacillus is nothing like so übiquitous as used to. be supposed. Tuberculosis is liow sometimes described as a dwelling disease. It might probably bo described with still more accuracy as a bedroom disease, or a bedroom and public-house disease. "It has been evident for many years past that the more- we learnt about tuberculosis, the less did we talk about hereditary; and that is why oiie cannot but comment on this latest pronouncement; upon tho subject^ wherein, we find that it was not worth while to 'drag in' hereditary at all. Many readers will be up in arms at once with apparently contrary instances; and much labor may be spent in the mathematical analysis of statistical data-r-as that of cases where a father and child i have tuberculosis, But suppose the I father kissed the child? What have you proved regarding hereditary? Your mathematics will never get more out of the data than is in them.