134 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



deeds, surely the reputation of that Board as an 

 aggregation of funny men will have been made in 

 history ! 



Next consider the individuals Nos. 3 and 5 in the 

 B. Generation. They both died of apoplexy, the 

 former at sixty-two years of age, and the latter at an 

 age not given. Are either of these members to be 

 regarded as physically degenerate ? Quite possible. 

 But who is to prophecy when such men as these are 

 only twenty-three years of age and desire to marry, 

 that they are going to die at sixty years of age of 

 nervous or arterial lesions, or a combination of both ? 

 And if we seek safety in a knowledge of the ancestry, 

 and say " let that guide us," and then the 

 individuals No. 14 or No. 22, C. Generation, 

 come to us asking for a certificate of marriage, 

 and upon an examination of the pedigree we 

 find in the left-hand branch of the family that 

 one of the ancestors died of apoplexy at sixty- 

 two, and in the right-hand branch that another died 

 of the same disease at seventy years of age, we might 

 be content to argue that if the apoplectic ancestors 

 lived to such ages before dying of a congenital disease, 

 there is not much to be alarmed at in the application 

 for marriage of Nos. 14 and 22 C. And consequently 

 we grant their request, only to find that our surmises 

 are falsified by No. 14 dying of apoplexy at the early 

 age of thirty-four years of age, and No. 22 dying of 

 the same disease at twenty-four ! Verily, we had 

 better not meddle with these things ! We can 

 promulgate the facts of inheritance and then let the 



