THE

Journal of Health and Disease.

OCTOBER, 1845.

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

CHAPTER II.

SECTION 1.-Transmission of defects.-Blindness.-Defects in voice.-Deafness.-Dumbness.-Teeth defects transmitted.-Skin diseases transmitted.— Rheumatism and Gout transmissible.-Chest affections transmitted.

THE influence of parents on the offspring, in regard to the transmission of the GENERAL CONDITIONS of body connected with health, having been pointed out in the preceding chapter, the attempt will be made in the sections of this chapter, to trace the parentagal influence in reference to diseased states-a tracing, pregnant with the most important results, as affording materials whence, in a great degree, the improvement of the human race must be obtained.

It will be necessary to arrange the facts to be stated, and the views to be brought forward under different heads; and, in this section, the case of defects will be the first brought under review.

The sense, of all the five senses, of the highest value, is that of sight. The transmission of the power of vision is so common as to be regarded as a matter of course; and it is also true, that blindness is transmitted.

An American writer thus remarks: "Blindness is often, though not uniformly, a hereditary defect. There is a family in North America, some individuals of which have been affected with blindness for the last hundred " 19 years.

Blindness sometimes runs in a family. A clergyman in the west of Scotland has several of his children born blind. In a

K

family of six individuals—four girls and two boys, the girls were born blind, the boys have perfect sight.20 Portal states, "I have seen three children out of four of the same family, blind from birth by amaurosis, or gutta serena." 21

The following statement is made by Dr. Mason Good: 22. The great influence of hereditary disposition in producing blindness, (amaurosis,) has been recognised by all the most correct observers. BEER, in particular, adverts to the frequent examples of this fact, and mentions a certain family in which all the females who had not had children, became amaurotic about the cessation of the monthly period; and, what is very remarkable, it is stated that this had been the case through three generations. The transmission of the diseases of the eyes and of the eyelids is undoubted.

Emma Strahan, aged twenty, had weak eyes since she was fifteen. She had styes from her infancy. She states that her mother had weakness of eyes.23

A young lady was under the care of the essayist for a long period for diseased cornea-a continual chronic inflammation, the young lady being in other respects well. The obstinacy of the case led to inquiry, and the fact presented itself, that her mother, about the same age, was affected similarly, and continued to be so affected for years. Issues in the arm were used in her mother's case, but without benefit, till she married, when her eyes became well; but her children received her diseased state, and this child, her only surviving daughter, has been troubled with these bad eyes for years.24

The defects in the voice are transmissible. Many nations cannot pronounce certain letters. In Scripture history is the following record:-" And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephtha, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. And Jephtha said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands. And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my

life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord delivered them into my hand: wherefore, then, are ye come up unto me this day to fight against me? Then Jephtha gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites. And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said Nay, then said they unto him, Say now shibboleth; and he said sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand." 25

It is true that the vocal defects may be in part the effect of education; still something may be referred to the modification, produced by education, being transmitted.

But the total loss of voice is also transmissible. Portal states, that Morgagni, a celebrated anatomist, and a very accurate observer, has seen three sisters dumb by birth, "d'origine." 26

In regard to deafness the following are the observations of Dr. Mason Good.27 They apply in part to dumbness as well.

"It is peculiarly lamentable to observe, that when the defect has once made an entrance into a family, it is peculiarly apt to become common to those children born afterwards; insomuch that we often meet with a third or a half, and in a few instances, where the first-born has been thus affected, with every individual of the progeny suffering from the same distressing evil.

"The late investigation in Ireland discovered families in which there were two, three, four, or more, thus circumstanced. In one family there were five children all deaf and dumb, in another seven, in another ten; and, in that of a poor militia officer on half-pay, there were nine born deaf and dumb in succession."

The lists published, of applicants for admission into the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in the Kent Road, present

strikingly the fact of the existence of deaf and dumb children in the same families. Three, four, and five deaf and dumb children are not uncommonly met with in one family; and in some instances there have been as many as seven. In the family of Martin, a labourer, out of ten children, seven were deaf and dumb; in the family of Kelly, a porter, seven out of eight were deaf and dumb; and in the Historical Sketch of the Asylum, published by Powell, a table is given of twenty families comprising one hundred and fifty-nine children, of whom ninety were deaf and dumb.

Dr. Mason Good asserts that deaf-dumb marrying do not always transmit the affection to the succeeding generation, though even both husband and wife have been afflicted.28 A writer in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, however, maintains, that the propagation of deafness is not uncommon; and the conclusion made is, that the experiment of marriage should be carefully avoided; 29 in other words, the probability of transmitting the defect is sufficiently great as to render it a question of morals whether it is right to run the risk.

It is a curious fact, that deviations in the form, the structure, and the arrangement of the teeth, are transmissible.

The writer is indebted to Mr. Leonard Koecker, a dentist, who combines scientific accuracy with mechanical dexterity, for the following facts on this subject.

Mr. K. has one family under his care, the father of which has of cutting (incisor) teeth only three; while the mother has of these teeth the usual number, four. The children, that in features resemble the father, have but three incisor teeth; and those children that in features, resemble the mother have four incisor teeth.

Mr. Koecker further stated, that in many families the peculiar honeycomb appearance of the enamel is transmitted.

And he further attests that the very form, under which the displacement of the teeth has been evidenced in the parent, will become the form of displacement in the children; and he states, that he has found it very useful to be aware of the displacement in the parents, because by such knowledge he has been enabled

so to guide his course in the removal of the milk teeth of the progeny, as to obtain the end-the making the growth to take place in the right direction.

In connexion with the skin, as the medium through which the nerves of TOUCH are acted upon by bodies touched, numerous are the facts proving that its states are transmitted from parent to child.

Martha Davies, a child, was brought to the writer, having an eruption on the arm, which always appears in the spring. Her mother states that all her children have had or have, a similar eruption; that she herself, when a child, had a similar eruption; that her own sister had a similar eruption; and her sister's children also have had a similar eruption.

John Wilson was brought to the writer with an eruption. All the seven children of the family have had the same eruption.30

Indeed, multitudinous illustrations might be given of this truth, that a parent with a pure skin produces a progeny with a pure skin; and also of the opposite truth, that a parent's diseased cutaneous condition is transmitted to his or her

progeny.

RHEUMATISM is transmissible. Multitudes of facts testify to

this.

Fanny Crocker consulted the writer for rheumatism. She is only fifteen years of age, and she has been suffering from the joints of her fingers being stiff, and from pains in her limbs, for twelve months. Such an early appearance of rheumatism is explained by the fact, stated by her, that her mother had rheumatism at the same age.31

31

The same remark applies to GOUT.

How common is it to hear a person say, when warned if he lives so free, he will be sure to have the gout, "Oh, it is of no use, I shall be sure to have it, whether or no, when I am forty. My father had it then, and my grandfather, and so did my father's brothers." This conviction often brings on gout-not that imagination will produce gout, but that the conviction produces a disregard of all preventive measures. It is not "Let us eat