Insanity: Its Causes and Prevention

ot uncommon in some communities, may properly be added here, as bearing on

dency of which is to indicate that such marriages result in deaf-mutism and idiocy. It has been claimed that the statistics of asylums for the deaf and dumb, the blind, and the idiotic, give color to such conclus

hout entering fully into the details of this discussion, I propose simply to indicate certain principles and facts which have been pretty definitely settled, and such inferences as may appear to

s consequences, among simple and uncultivated communities. Notable examples are the Pitcairn Island settlements, formed from the close in-and-in-breeding of the progeny of four mutineers from the ship Bounty, and nine native women; the small community of fishermen, near Brighton, England; the numerous small and isolated villages of Iceland; and the Basque and Bas-Breton settlements among the Pyrenees. We must a

ed for many generations with no unfavorable results. A friend of mine has bred in-and-in a herd of Jers

fifteen years to my own knowledge, and apparently with no

s been confined there for several hundred years, and strictly isolated. No ne

ral character, that marriages of consanguinity result, more often than other marriages, in unfavorable effects upon of

and flocks in a healthy condition, to frequently introduce other strains of blood; and the farmer who should fail to do this in reference to his catt

hether healthy or unhealthy are transmitted to offspring; and if all herds of cattle and swine and flocks of fowls were in a stric

which we depend for labor. The change from animal life on the broad prairies and woods of a temperate zone, to life in stables of crowded cities and yards of farmers, many of which are in any thing

are found. All are tainted with the seeds of disease to a greater or less extent, and health is a question of degree. If, now, two persons of a phthisical or insane diathesis contract marriage, the tendency toward such a diathesis will be greatly increased in the

nhealthy character,-and the atavic influences would also be similar; so that any counteracting effect through this influence

h sides. Where no such relation exists, there is a great probability that other counteracting qualities of character and hereditary influences may modify and even remove weaknesses, while,

as there is a greater probability that this can be more surely done, of whatever nature they may be, by introducing other and opposing tendencies from unr

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