CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES. 269 



investigate and report upon the influence of con- 

 sanguineous marriages upon the offspring, and the 

 result of their labours, as published in the American 

 Journal of Insanity, 1870, shows clearly that if the 

 family be free from degenerative taint, marriage among 

 its members in no way diminishes the chances of 

 healthy offspring. This conclusion is in perfect agree- 

 ment with the findings of other and more recent 

 investigators, such as Anstie, George Darwin,* and 

 A. H. Huth. According to these authorities, there 

 is no greater amount of disease or deformity among 

 the offspring of parents related to each other by blood, 

 than among the children of parents not so related, 

 provided the parents be equally free from tendency 

 to disease or degeneration. With a perfectly healthy 

 stock, as every breeder of animals knows, " in and in 

 breeding " may be practised with impunity, but ^here 

 the stock is tainted with disease or imperfection, 

 safety is only to be found in " crossing." 



Where the error lay in the old doctrine, upon 

 which was founded the prohibition of consanguineous 

 unions, was not in asserting that disease and deformity 

 were more often met with in the children of these 

 than in those of other unipns, for such is true, but 

 in attributing these unhappy results to the mere fact 

 that the parents were related by blood. Over and 

 above the fact that these consanguineous marriages 

 are almost certain to transmit, in an accentuated 

 form, any defect or tendency to disease already present? 

 * Journal of Statistical Society, June 1875. 



