CANCER. 185 



good example is given by Dr. B. Ward Kichardson, 

 who says : " The intermarriage of cancer and con- 

 sumption is a combination specially fraught with 

 danger." He gives the following case: "A young 

 man of marked cancerous proclivity married a woman 

 whose parents had both died of pulmonary con- 

 sumption. This married couple had a family of five 

 children, all of whom grew up to adolescence, sustain- 

 ing at their best but delicate and feeble existences. 

 The first of these children died of a disease allied to 

 cancer, called lupus ; the second, of simple pulmonary 

 consumption; the third, owing to tubercular deposit 

 in the brain, succumbed from epileptiform convul- 

 sions ; the fourth, with symptoms of tubercular brain 

 disease, sank from diabetes, the result of the nervous 

 injury; and the last, living longer than any of the 

 rest, viz., to thirty-six years, died of cancer. The 

 parents in this instance survived three of the children, 

 but they both died comparatively early in life the 

 father from cancerous disease of the liver, the mother 

 from heart disease and bronchitis." * In this case 

 there was no chance of reversion to the healthy type, 

 and the result was the same as in several of the 

 families already mentioned in the chapters on insanity 

 and epilepsy where both parents were tainted, viz., 

 extinction of the family. Only one of these wretched 

 children lived to die of cancer; but it cannot be 

 doubted that had the others survived longer, more 

 of them would have developed malignant disease. 



* " Diseases of Modern Life." 

 13 



