Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/297

 Rh now than formerly; but no causes were given for the supposed increase.

In a subsequent part of this paper I shall have occasion to return to the subject of consumption, when noticing, more particularly, the diseases of miners, and examining the eligibility of the Landsend district as a place of residence for consumptive patients.

Hydrocephalus.—The propriety of placing this disease among scrofulous affections will probably be contested by many; but, I apprehend, the majority of experienced practitioners will agree with me in thinking, that by far the greater number of the hydro cephalic affections of infancy and childhood do occur in families of a decided strumous constitution. Although, then, it may be true that the subjects of these affections present no other morbid indication of scrofula, the constitutional predisposition suffices, in an inquiry like the present, to justify the present classification of hydrocephalus.

Hydrocephalus, like external scrofula, appeared to me to be of rather frequent occurrence in this district; but this was not the prevailing opinion of the resident practitioners. My Dispensary table makes the proportional prevalence of this disease not very different from that recorded in Dr. Willan and Dr. Bateman's tables for London. The degree of prevalence, by the Plymouth tables, is so very much less, that I am led to doubt their accuracy in this point. Certainly, during the period of my residence at Penzance, I met with a greater proportion of hydro cephalic cases than I have done since.

Epilepsy.—My own experience leads me to consider