A consideration of gout in connection with the question of heredity will show how near-sighted people can be, how they can go on believing a certain thing for centuries without analyzing, until somebody suddenly shows them the absurdity of the thing. Gout was always considered a typical hereditary disease; for it was seen in the grandfathers, fathers, children, grandchildren, and so on. So, certainly, it must be hereditary! It did not come to our doctors' minds to think that perhaps, after all, it was not heredity that was to blame, but simply that _the same conditions_ that produced gout in the ancestors likewise produced it in their descendants. We know now that gout is caused by excessive eating, excessive drinking, lack of exercise, and faulty elimination. And, since, as a general thing, children lead the same lives that their fathers did, they are likely to develop the same diseases as their fathers did. A poor man who leads an abstemious life doesn't develop gout, and if his children lead the same abstemious lives they do not develop gout. (There are some cases of gout among the poor, but they are very rare.) But if they should begin to gorge and live an improper life they would be prone to develop the disease. The disease, therefore, cannot in any way be considered hereditary. In matrimony, gout in either of the couple is not a desirable quality, but it is not a bar to marriage; and, if the candidate individually is healthy and free from gout, the fact that there was gout in the ancestry should play no role. =Mumps= Mumps is the common name for what is technically called parotitis (or parotiditis). Parotitis is an inflammation of the parotid glands. The parotid glands are situated, one on each side, immediately in front and below the external ear, and they are between one-half and one ounce in weight. They belong to the salivary glands; that is, they manufacture saliva, and each parotid gland has a duct through which it pours the saliva into the mouth. These ducts open opposite the second upper molar teeth. We might be surprised to be told that these parotid glands can have anything to do with the sex organs, but there is no other remote organ that has such a close and rather mysterious relationship with the sex-glands as have the parotids. When the parotid glands, either one or both, are inflamed, the testicles or ovaries are also liable to be attacked by inflammation. The inflammation of the testicles may be so severe as to cause them to shrivel and dry up; or, even when no shrivelling, no atrophy of the testicles occurs, they may be so affected as to become incapable of producing spermatozoa. Moreover, in cases where the testicles of a mumps patient seemingly were not attacked--that is, where the patient was not aware of any inflammation, having no pain and no other symptoms--the testicles may have become incapable of generating spermatozoa.