U4 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



suitable person should not be condemned. Of course 

 in all suck cases the second party to the contract 

 should be made to understand the position of her 

 future husband, and the risk he runs of at any time 

 becoming insane. 



But such permission can be extended to men alone, 

 and to those only who have never been insane, and in 

 whom the signs of the insane diathesis are not pro- 

 minent. To those who have already had an attack of 

 insanity, or in whom the insane diathesis is distinctly 

 marked, it is impossible for the physician, having 

 regard to the health and welfare of the community, to 

 recommend marriage. 



As to women, prohibition must be still more strict. 

 The cares and trials of motherhood are so trying and 

 severe that for her own sake no woman predisposed to 

 insanity should be induced to add so greatly to her 

 chances of losing her reason, while the terrible certainty 

 with which the mother transmits her insane tempera- 

 ment to her children renders it impossible for the 

 physician to consent to her putting herself in the way 

 of becoming a parent. 



This is all that can be done at present, namely, to 

 give advice which possibly will be disregarded by the 

 great majority of those to whom it is offered ; but ifc is 

 earnestly to be hoped that before long the Legislature 

 will do something to stay in some degree the propaga- 

 tion of insanity. With our present knowledge of the 

 hereditary character of this disease and its cruel and 

 pauperising effect upon the populace, it is a scandal 



