THE

Journal of Health and Disease.

DECEMBER, 1845.

PHYSIOLOGY IN REGARD TO THE LAWS OF INCREASE, AND THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS ON OFFSPRING.

CHAPTER II.

SECTION III.-Insanity, its transmission.-Proportion among the insane of those hereditarily so.-Insanity transmitted more by the mother than by the father. Epilepsy. -Drunkenness. - The Insanity connected with it transmitted.

Notes.

This

ANOTHER series of diseased states which are transmitted to the offspring, will form the subjects for this section. series embracing insanity, epilepsy, and drunkenness.

For the facts in relation to the first of these—namely, insanity, the writer is indebted to a French physician--M. Baillarger.

Of the hereditary transmission of insanity there exists not the slightest doubt in the minds of those who have had experience in the management of the insane. As to the proportions in which the hereditariness of insanity demonstrates itself, there is much difference of opinion. The following table gives the observations of three chief observers.

M. Baillarger thinks that these tables are unsatisfactory. The reasons given for his opinion appear conclusive. He conceives the proportion of cases due to hereditary transmission to be at least three in four. He has collected information on the subject, trying to avoid all sources of fallacy; and the extent to

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which he has obtained facts on the subject may easily be judged by the statement, that before generalising, he collected six hundred observations. From these many interesting facts are

deducible.

Of these six hundred cases he throws aside one hundred and forty-seven; these being cases in which the hereditariness of insanity could be inferred only from this, that there had been in the families of the patients collateral relations affected with insanity; and the views now to be stated are builded upon the four hundred and fifty-three cases that remain, in which the insanity could be traced from parent to child.

Baillarger holds the opinions, that insanity is very nearly equally frequent in the two sexes, and that the proportion of insane married patients is the same in men as in women.

He then inquires, Is the insanity of the MOTHER, ceteris paribus, more frequently hereditary than that of the FATHER; for if it is found that more cases are transmitted by the father than by the mother, or by the mother than by the father, such fact can be attributed only to the greater facility with which the transmission takes place through one of the parents.

In answer to this inquiry he appeals to his facts; and of 453 lunatics affected with hereditary insanity, the disease had been

This shows that the insanity of the mother is more frequently hereditary than that of the father, and is so in the proportion of one third.

Another question grows out of this-In the cases of hereditary transmission, does the disease of the mother transmit itself to a GREATER number of children than that of the father?

* This gentleman is physician to the lunatic department in the hospital of La Salpêtrière, Paris. His lectures are published in the Lancet, and contain much valuable information on the history of insanity, and the condition of the insane: a circumstance illustrating a remark, made by a competent judge, that "in this and other medical periodicals, THE MORE the subjects do not belong to medical PRACTICE, the more valuable they are."—p. 137.

Of the two hundred and seventy-one families, in which insanity had heen transmitted by the mother, the disease, at the period when the observations were taken, had declared itself

Thus, sixty-eight times out of 271, the disease had been transmitted to the same children several times-that is to say, in one fourth of the cases.

Whereas, out of 182 families in which the insanity was derived from the father, the disease had, at the time when the observations were taken, attacked

The insanity of the father was therefore transmitted several times to the same children-thirty times out of 182; that is to say, in one sixth of the cases.

So that not only is the insanity of the mother more frequently hereditary, but its attacks in number of times in the children affected, are more numerous.

Another interesting question presents itself to the mind as of high importance, if admitting of an answer-namely, Is insanity more frequently transmitted from the MOTHER to the DAUGHTERS, and from the FATHER to the SONS?

Baillarger gives the facts, by which an answer can be obtained to this question.

Out of 346 children, inheriting insanity from the mother, 197 were girls, and 169 were boys, presenting a difference of forty-eight, or one fourth.

Out of 215 children, to whom the disease had been transmitted by the father, 128 were boys, and eighty-seven girls, presenting a difference of forty-one, or one third.

The insanity of the mother is transmitted, therefore, to the girls more frequently than to the boys, in the proportion of one fourth; the insanity of the father, on the other hand, to the

boys more frequently than to the girls, in the proportion of one third.

On further examining these tables, it appears, that, of 271 boys, 149 derived their insanity from the mother, 128 from the father; presenting a difference of twenty-one, or scarcely one sixth.

On comparing the girls, the difference is much greater. Out of 274 insane girls, 197 derived their insanity from the mother; 87 from the father; presenting a difference of 110, or more than one half.

These facts justify the conclusion, that boys derive their insanity about as often from the father as from the mother; but that the girls, on the contrary, inherit their insanity at least twice as often from the mother as from the father.

The following deductions of Baillarger will most satisfactorily sum up these views on the hereditary transmission of insanity.

"1. The insanity of the mother, with regard to hereditary transmission, is more serious than that of the father, not only because it is more frequently hereditary, but also because it transmits itself to a greater number of children.

"2. The transmission of the insanity of the mother is more to be apprehended in the girls than in the boys; that of the father, on the contrary, is more to be apprehended in the boys than in the girls.

"3. The transmission of the insanity of the mother is scarcely more to be apprehended in the boys than in the girls; it is, on the contrary, twice as much to be apprehended in the girls."

EPILEPSY, which is intimately connected with insanity, is another disease concerning which much erroneous medical practice exists, if it be a fact that the disease is transmissible.

For instance, it is a common, but on every ground a very improper advice, given by medical men to epileptic patients, to get married. This is so recommended under the idea, that epilepsy is benefited by the married condition. But, even allowing that it is, the remedy, or rather the palliative, is worse than the discase. A person uncured of epilepsy, marrying, is almost sure to have weak offspring; it may be epileptic or

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idiotic offspring; but if not so punished, the very fact that he is a perpetual source of anxiety to the being to whom he is united, ought to be a sufficient motive for refusing to gratify his selfishness at the expense of the happiness of a fellow-creature. Marriage is in such a case the use of a remedy which, while curing the one being, a result which is doubtful, is inflicting misery upon the other.

The writer of these views, as a physician in private practice, has, it is likely, had a greater experience in the treatment of epilepsy, than has fallen to the lot of any physician in Great Britain; and the result of that experience has been to make him conclude, that the risks of transmitting epilepsy are so great as to make him put his veto, where his opinion is asked, on the marriage of persons, uncured of epilepsy.

Epilepsy is, in his belief, in the majority of cases, dependent upon a diseased state of the cerebellum; and as a being who gives existence to other beings, must give the conditions existing in himself, this state is given to the unfortunate progeny, who, when they come to years of judgment, will have to experience the bitterness of feeling in regard to their parents, that the sins or the vicious constitution of the parents, descend unto the children.

DRUNKENNESS, which phrenological observations tend to establish, is connected with a diseased condition of some portion of brain, and which thus becomes, as it were, a part of the physical constitution of the human being, admits of being transmitted.

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The following interesting, yet pain-producing remarks on the subject, are full of importance. They are the results of the experience of a physician who has had the best opportunities for observation, and who has also a mind most exactly adapted for forming correct experiences:

"Three forms of derangement, or complications of insanity with drunkenness, have been met with. There is, first, the frequent variety in which the long and excessive, but voluntary and deliberate indulgence of the appetite for stimulants has produced directly mania or fatuity. There is, secondly, the brief delirium immediately succeeding a debauch, or a course of dis