204 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



parental taints, that all succumbed to tubercular 

 disease. The connection between cancer and tuber- 

 cular disease was pointed out by Sir William Gull, 

 who called attention to the frequency with which 

 cancerous parents, or parents belonging to families 

 in which cancer was common, begot scrofulous 

 children. 



The frequency with which the scrofulous diathesis 

 is met with among idiots is most remarkable. Dr. 

 Ireland, one of the greatest living authorities upon 

 idiocy, estimates that at least two-thirds of all idiots 

 are scrofulous ; while Dr. Clouston of the Royal 

 Edinburgh Asylum, who has closely studied the rela- 

 tionship existing between the tubercular diathesis and 

 insanity, treats the matter as beyond dispute, merely 

 remarking that " the frequent association of the 

 depraved nutritive condition known as l scrofulous ' 

 with idiocy and congenital imbecility is well known, 

 and universally recognised by those who have had 

 experience in such cases/' 



Further proof of the fact that the scrofulous tem- 

 perament is a deeper level of degeneration than the 

 phthisical, is found in the facts that the phthisical 

 rarely or never develop the purely scrofulous forms 

 of disease, although the scrofulous often develop and 

 die of tubercular disease of the lungs ; and that the 

 children of the phthisical are very often scrofulous, 

 whatever other mark of degeneration they may bear. 

 This could *ot have stronger support than it receives 

 at the hands of Dr. Fletcher Beach, the superin- 



