HEREDITARY TRAITS. 



31 



those depending on what is called diathesis — a 

 general state or disposition of the constitution 

 predisposing to some special disease. Such are 

 scrofula, cancer, tubercular consumption, gout, 

 arthritis, and some diseases specially affecting the 

 skin. This would not be the place for a discus- 

 sion of this particular part of our subject, inter- 

 esting though it undoubtedly is. But it may be 

 worth while to note that we have, in the variety 

 of forms in which the same constitutional bad 

 quality may present itself, evidence that what is 

 actually transmitted is not a peculiarity affecting 

 a particular organ, even though in several succes- 

 sive generations the disease may show itself in 

 the same part of the body, but an affection of the 

 constitution generally. We have here an answer 

 to the question asked by Montaigne in the essay 

 from which we have already quoted. The essay 

 was written soon after he had, for the first time, 

 experienced the pangs of renal calculus : " 'Tis 

 to be believed," he says, " that I derived this in- 

 firmity from my father, for he died wonderfully 

 tormented " with it ; he was " never sensible of 

 his disease till the sixty-seventh year of his age, 

 and before that had never felt any grudging or 



symptom of it but lived till then in a 



happy, vigorous state of health, little subject to 

 infirmities, and continued seven years after in this 

 disease, and died a very painful death. I was 

 born about twenty-five years before his disease 

 seized him, and in the time of his most flourish- 

 ishing and healthful state of body, his third child 

 in order of birth ; where could his propension to 

 this malady lie luiking all that while ? And he 

 being so far from the infirmity, how could that 

 small part of his substance carry away so great 

 an impression of its share? And how so con- 

 cealed that, till five-and-forty years after, I did 

 not begin to be sensible of it ? being the only one 

 to this hour, among so many brothers and sis- 

 ters, and all of one mother, that was ever troubled 

 with it. He that can satiifie me in this point, I 

 will believe him in as many other miracles as he 

 pleases, always provided that, as their manner is, 

 he does not give me a doctrine much more intri- 

 cate and fantastic than the thing itself, for cur- 

 rent pay." When we note, however, that in 

 many cases the children of persons affected like 

 the elder Montaigne are not affected like the 

 parents, but with other infirmities, as the ten- 

 dency to gout, and vice versa (a circumstance of 

 which the writer of these lines has but too good 

 reason to be cognizant, a parent's tendency to 

 gout having in his case been transmitted in the 

 modified but even more troublesome form of the 



disease which occasioned Montaigne so much 

 anguish), we perceive that it is not " some small 

 part of the substance " which transmits its con- 

 dition to the child, but the general state of the 

 constitution. Moreover, it may be hoped in 

 many cases (which would scarcely be the case if 

 the condition or qualities of some part of the body 

 only were transmitted) that the germs of disease, 

 or rather the predisposition to disease, may be 

 greatly diminished, or even entirely eradicated, 

 by suitable precautions. Thus persons inheriting 

 a tendency to consumption have become, in many 

 cases, vigorous and healthy by passing as much 

 of their time as possible in the open air, by avoid- 

 ing crowded and overheated rooms, taking mod- 

 erate but regular exercise, judicious diet, and so 

 forth. We believe that the disease which troubled 

 the last fifteen years of the life of Montaigne 

 might readily have been prevented, and the ten- 

 dency to it eradicated, during his youth. 



Let us turn, however, from these considera- 

 tions to others more interesting, though less im- 

 portant, and on the whole better suited to these 

 pages. 



The inheritance of tricks of habit is one of 

 the most perplexing of all the phenomena of he- 

 redity. The less striking the habit, the more 

 remarkable, perhaps, is its persistence as an in- 

 herited trait. Giron de Buzareingues states that 

 he knew a man who, when he lay on his back, 

 was wont to throw his right leg across the left ; 

 one of this person's daughters had the same 

 habit from her birth, constantly assuming that 

 position in the cradle, notwithstanding the re- 

 sistance offered by the swaddling-bands. 1 Dar- 



1 While penning the above lines the writer has been 

 reminded of an experience of his own, which he had 

 never before thought of, connected with the subject of 

 heredity ; yet it seems not unlikely that it may be re- 

 garded as a case in point. During the infancy of his 

 eldest son, it so chanced that the questiou of rest at 

 night, and consequently the question of finding some 

 convenient way of keeping the child quiet, became 

 one of considerable interest to him. Cradle-rockiDg 

 was effective, but carried on in the usual way pre- 

 vented his own sleep, though causing the child to 

 sleep. He devised, however, a way of rocking the 

 cradle with the foot, which could be carried on in his 

 sleep, after a few nights' practice, Now it is an odd 

 coincidence (only, perhaps) that the writer's next 

 child, a girl, had while still an infant a trick which we 

 have noticed in no other case. She would rock her- 

 self in the cradle by throwing the right leg over the 

 left at regular intervals, the swing of the cradle being 

 steadily kept up for many minutes, and being quite as 

 wide in range as a nurse could have given. It was 

 often continued when the child was asleep. 



Since writing the above, the writer has learned 

 from his eldest daughter, the girl who as a child had 



