Joseph Adams Issues a Pioneering Work on Medical Genetics

In 1814 English physician and surgeon and medical writer Joseph Adams of London published A Treatise on the Supposed Hereditary Properties of Diseases, Containing Remarks on the Unfounded Terros and Ill-Judged Cautions Consequent on such Erroneous Opinion; with notes, illustrative of the Subject, Particularly in Madness and Scrofula.  A pioneer in medical genetics, Adams distinguished between familial and hereditary diseases, saw that an increase in hereditary disease frequency in isolated areas could be caused by inbreeding, and suggested the establishment of hereditary disease registers.

J. Norman (ed), Morton's Medical Bibliography 5th ed (1991) no. 216.1.