304 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



What may have been the ancestry of this asthmatic 

 father *we do not know, but most probably it was 

 strongly neurotic. The degenerate condition which 

 showed in him as asthma, became fatal infantile con- 

 vulsions in six of his children and epilepsy in another, 

 while the idiocy and tubercular disease in others of 

 his children showed the deeply degenerate character 

 of the stock. 



We are therefore justified in looking with grave 

 suspicion upon the members of all families in which 

 this affection occurs. Inquiry will prove that very 

 few such families are free from gout, heart-disease, 

 insanity, scrofula, or other sign of family degeneration. 



Here is the genealogical tree of the family of an 

 asthmatic mother. Every member of this family I 

 knew intimately : 



M. - F. 



Healthy. Asthmatic. 



F. M. M. 



Mute. Scrofulous. A drunkard. 



Married, Died in delirium tremens. 



no issue. Married for years, 



no issue. 



" BLEEDERS." Of this affection I have already 

 spoken at page 73. It is called the " hsemorrhagic 

 diathesis," and consists of an abnormal condition of 

 the blood-vessels, or the blood, or of both, whereby the 

 slightest cut or scratch is followed by bleeding so 

 profuse and uncontrollable as to frequently prove fatal. 

 Death has followed such innocent operations as leech- 

 ing, vaccination, or the extraction of a tooth ; indeed, 



