CHAPTER XIX. 



CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES. 



THIS is a subject upon which it is necessary to say a 

 few words here, as it is a matter Sf great importance 

 that something should be known of the effect of the 

 intermarriage of blood relations, more especially by 

 members of families in which exist a tendency to any 

 hereditary disease. 



It is popularly believed that the intermarriage of 

 persons nearly related by blood leads to evil conse- 

 quences in the offspring, and in proof of this it has 

 been pointed out that such imperfections as idiocy, 

 insanity, epilepsy, deaf-mutism, blindness, scrofula, 

 phthisis, paralysis, and various bodily deformities, are 

 much more frequently met with among the children 

 of parents who are close blood-relations than among 

 those of parents who are not so related. Now, that 

 all the imperfections above mentioned and many 

 others are met with among the children of consan- 

 guineous marriages is true, and that they occur here 

 more frequently than among the general population is 

 also true, but that this condition of affairs is due to 



