MABBIAGE AND DISEASE. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THE doctrine of the hereditary transmission of family 

 characters, pathological as well as physiological, although 

 now incontestably established, has by no means been 

 accorded the general recognition its great importance 

 so clearly demands. With our present knowledge, 

 there cannot be the very slightest doubt in the mind 

 of any one who has even casually considered the sub- 

 ject, that much of the disease, both physical and mental, 

 which afflicts this and every other civilised people on 

 the face of the earth is to a large extent the result 

 of hereditary transmission of a degenerate constitu-^ 

 tion or predisposition to disease, brought about by the 

 deteriorating influences of civilised life. Nor can it be 

 doubted that the tendency of the age is toward the 

 cultivation and spread of these hereditary diseases; 

 for while our modern, exciting, feverish, highly artifi- 

 cial, mode of life is prolific of disease and degenera- 

 tive changes in the organism, the customs of civilised 

 society, as at present constituted, are designed to bar 



