CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES. 271 



very deeply impressed upon the parental organism, 

 it is almost certain it will not appear in the offspring, 

 if the other parent have nothing of the character. 

 But when both parents are possessed of the charac- 

 ter, whether it be physiological or pathological, this 

 natural tendency to revert to the original is often 

 over-borne, and the character is repeated in an 

 accentuated form in the offspring. 



Now, this accentuation of all family characters 

 is what must always happen in the case of consan- 

 guineous marriages. If there be any taint in the 

 family, each member of the family will have inherited 

 more or less of it from the common ancestor. Take 

 the case of cousins, the descendants of a common 

 grandparent who was insane, and of an insane stock. 

 Here the cousins are certain to have inherited more 

 or less of the insane diathesis. Even if the taint 

 has been largely diluted in their case by the wise, 

 or more likely fortunate, marriages of their blood- 

 related parents, yet will they have inherited a cer- 

 tain tendency to nervous disease, and if they marry, 

 they must not be surprised if that taint appear in 

 an aggravated form in their children. Some of 

 the children of such parents are generally idiotic, 

 epileptic, dumb, or scrofulous, and the parents marvel 

 whence came the imperfection. It may be, in some 

 cases, that the parents, and possibly the grandparents, 

 of the unfortunate children, have not up till that 

 time displayed any outward evidence of the tendency 

 to disease which they have inherited and handed 



