244 



THE TREND OF THE RACE 



most diverse results. Huth has compiled the following table from 

 several writers who have given the percentage of consanguinity 

 among the parents of idiotic offspring: 



Feeble-Minded Offspring from Consanguineous Marriages 



The fluctuations in these data do not prove the contention of 

 Huth that the statistics are entirely worthless. They are what 

 one would expect in the light of Mendelian theory. And there is 

 nothing surprising in the results obtained by Dr. Voisin who 

 found, as the result of a careful examination of 1,077 f n ^ s 

 patients at Bicetre and Saltpetreiere, that in no one instance 

 could healthy consanguinity be regarded as a cause of idiocy, 

 epilepsy or insanity. The same observer reports on an isolated 

 community at Batz in which there were five cousin marriages and 

 31 second cousin marriages with no malformations or mental de- 

 fects. Howe, on the other hand, found among the parents of 359 

 idiots, 17 and possibly 20 cases of consanguineous marriages. 

 These consanguineous parents, several of whom were scrofulous 

 and intemperate, produced 95 children "of whom 44 were idiotic, 

 12 others were scrofulous, i was dead and i was a dwarf." The 

 percentage of idiots given in the table as the findings of Bemiss 

 rests upon an inference not very well supported by the facts. 

 Out of 833 consanguineous marriages he found that 7.8 per cent 



