112 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



cavity of the skull. Whence a deterioration of the 

 mental faculties, which in the offspring may produce 

 lunatics or idiots," In Carpenter's Physiology, a 

 well-known text-book, it is stated that of 359 idiots 

 whose parentage was investigated, 99 were found to 

 be the children of confirmed drunkards. 



No doubt there is a limit to the transmission of 

 abnormal characteristics, either in an original or in a 

 disguised form. Always striving after perfection, or 

 rather uniformity of type, Nature either purifies a 

 race of its physical and moral defects, or, if the type 

 be too vicious, exterminates it, as in the case of the 

 Caesars, the Stuarts, and many other historical families. 



As an example of family degeneration, Doutre- 

 bente gives the following case : — 



First Generation. Father intelligent, but hypo- 

 chondriac, and suffering from delusions. Dies insane. 

 Mother nervous and emotional. 



Second Generation. Ten children of the above. 

 Three die in childhood. Daughter A is hypochondriac 

 and emotional; daughter B becomes insane at twenty; 

 daughter C is weak-minded ; daughter D has delusions 

 and commits suicide ; son E is weak-minded ; son F 

 hypochondriac ; son G hypochondriac. 



TJiircl Generation. Ten children of A. Five die 



