HISTORY OF PEDIATRICS 505 



more of its external or internal organs. In this way it may affect 

 the nervous, the muscular, the osseous, or other tissues. That is 

 why dystrophies in different forms, obesity, achondroplasia, hyper- 

 plasia, or atrophy may be directly inherited, while in other cases the 

 disposition to degeneration only is transmitted. 



Hereditary degeneracy is often caused by social influences. The 

 immoral conditions created by our financial system make women 

 select not the strong and hearty and the young husband, but the 

 rich and old, with the result of having less and less vigorous chil- 

 dren. Certain professions, the vocations of soldiers and mariners, 

 and subordinate positions of employees in general, enforce com- 

 plete or approximative celibacy, with the same result. The na- 

 tions that submit to the alleged necessity of keeping millions of 

 men in standing armies, are threatened with a degenerated off- 

 spring, for not only do they keep the strongest men from timely 

 marriages, but they increase prostitution and venereal diseases, 

 with their dire consequences for men, women, and progeny. Wars 

 lead to the same result in increased proportion, for tens and hun- 

 dreds of thousands of the sound men are slain or crippled, or de- 

 moralized. Those who are inferior and unfit for physical exer- 

 tions remain behind and procreate an inferior race; those who 

 believe with Lord Rosebery that an empire is of but little use with- 

 out an imperial race will always, in the interests of a wholesome 

 civilization, object to the untutored enthusiasm which denounces 

 the "weakling," and the "craven cowardice" of those who believe 

 in the steady evolution of peace and harmony amongst men, and, 

 in sympathy with the physical and moral health of the present 

 and future generation, will prefer the cleanly and washed sports- 

 manship of an educated youth to that of the mud-streaked and 

 blood-stained man-hunter. 



A great many diseased conditions cannot be thoroughly under- 

 stood unless they be studied in the evolving being. Tumors are 

 rarely inherited, but many of them are observed in early life. Lym- 

 phoma, sarcoma, also lipoma and carcinoma, and csytic degen- 

 eration, are observed at birth, or within a short time after, and 

 seem to favor Cohnheim's theory, according to which many owe 

 their origin to the persistence in an abnormal location of embryonic 

 cells. This theory does not exclude the fact that congenital tumors 

 may remain dormant for years or decades and not destroy the 

 young. 



So much on some points connected with embryology and tera- 

 tology. The connection with obstetrical practice is equally intimate. 

 Three per cent of all the mature living fetuses are not born into 

 postnatal life this very day. To reduce the mortality even to that 

 figure, it has taken much increase of knowledge and improvement 



