260 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



the ages of puberty and adolescence of tubercular 

 disease, few of them live past middle age, and great 

 numbers of them ultimately become insane and 

 criminal. They are nervous, irritable, passionate, and 

 horribly cruel, and are the perpetrators of most of 

 those fiendish barbarities, the recital of which from 

 time to time shocks the civilised world. 



To put it shortly, the children in each case are 

 like their parents. The immature parent is only 

 partially developed mentally and bodily, and like him 

 his child is wanting both in mind and body. On 

 the other hand, the aged parent, though deficient 

 in physical vigour, is often ripe mentally for the 

 mental faculties flourish long after the bodily vigour 

 has begun to wane. Consequently, we find in his 

 children mental ability curiously mixed with that 

 peevish irritability so typical of the aged, and dis- 

 torted as we should expect to find it imprisoned in a 

 prematurely decrepit physical organisation. 



This I draw from my own observation and experi- 

 ence after many years' intimate association with large 

 numbers of the idiotic, imbecile, and insane, and 

 their relatives, together with some study of those 

 brought before our criminal courts for judgment. 

 Unfortunately I cannot present statistics of my own 

 on the subject, but am convinced that if I could they 

 would support the views here broadly expressed, as 

 do the admirably arranged figures of such eminent 

 investigators as Marro, Langdon Down, and Korosi. 



A glance at the accompanying diagram which I 



