208 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



the criminal, agree that tubercular disease is con- 

 stantly met with in criminals themselves, and in 

 their ancestors and descendants, a*hd that a majority 

 of the whole total succumb to these diseases. Recently 

 Dr. Pauline Tarnowsky has been very closely studying 

 the prostitute, who may be taken as the analogue of 

 the male instinctive criminal of the petty class, and 

 of 150 women of this class whose family history 

 she was able to get, she found phthisical parentage 

 in no less than 44 per. cent.* 



Thus, we see, are the family degenerations all 

 allied, the scrofulous being related to the cancerous, 

 gouty, epileptic, insane, syphilitic, drunken, and crimi- 

 nal, and all these being related to each other. 



It must not, however, be inferred from all this 

 that tubercular disease only attacks those inheriting 

 a predisposition thereto. True, the family taint 

 can be traced in 30 to 50 per cent, of all phthisical 

 persons, and in quite as large a proportion of those 

 suffering from scrofulous disease (and that only 

 reckoning taint as existing where tubercular disease 

 has been present in the ancestors), but that inherited 

 predisposition is absolutely necessary to the develop- 

 ment of these diseases has been proved to be 

 erroneous. As a rule, the tubercle bacillus only 

 attacks those deficient in vitality, but it is not 

 necessary that this deficiency should be congenital ; 

 such vital poverty may be acquired. Of course, 

 individuals thus vitally reduced brought below par, 



* "Etude Anthropom^tiique sur les Prostitutes et les Voleuses." 



