|
X.] |
DISEASE. |
1G!) |
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scope was unknown.
name diseases correctly. |
They were then incompetent to |
Mixture of Inheritances.-The first thing that struck me after methodically classifying the diseases of each family, in the form shown in the Schedule, was their great intermixture. The Tables A and B in Appendix G are offered as ordinary specimens of what is everywhere to be found. They are actual cases, except that I have given fancy names and initials, and for' further concealment, have partially transposed the sexes. Imagine an intermarriage between any two in the lower division of these tables, and then consider the variety of, inheritable disease to which their children would be liable ! The problem is rendered yet more complicated by the metamorphoses of disease. The disease A in the parent does not necessarily appear, even when inherited, as A in the children. We know very little indeed about the effect of a mixture of inheritable diseases, how far they are mutually exclusive and how far they blend ; or how far when they blend, they change into a third form. Owing to the habit of free intermarriage no person can be exempt from the inheritance of a vast variety of diseases or of special tendencies to them. Deaths by mere old age and the accompanying failure of vital powers without any well defined malady, are very common in my collection, but I do not find as a rule, that the children of persons who die of old age have any marked immunity from specific diseases.
There is a curious double appearance in the Records,
