IN-AND-IN BREEDING. 187 



ried ; and at present the village has fifteen hundred 

 inhabitants, who are of strong constitution, and are 

 active, sprightly, intelligent, and healthy. Our in- 

 formant had this place directly under his observation, 

 and says he neither saw deformity nor insanity, and 

 only one case of deaf -mutism ; in fact, the entire race 

 was robust and healthful." 



Dr. T. A. McGraw, who has written an interesting 

 article on this subject, says : " There can be no doubt 

 that close and continual interbreeding has taken place, 

 time and again, without any evident injurious conse- 

 quences among simple and uncultivated communi- 

 ties. Notable examples are the Pitcairn Island settle- 

 ment, formed from the close in-and-in breeding of the 

 progeny of four mutineers from the ship Bounty, and 

 nine native women; the small community of fisher- 

 men near Brighton, England ; the numerous small 

 and isolated villages of Iceland ; and the Basque and 

 Bas-Breton settlements among the Pyrenees. . . . We 

 must admit, from overwhelming evidence, that under 

 such circumstances as the settlements just mentioned 

 afforded, consanguinity among married people does 

 not necessarily cause evil results to the progeny. If 

 it is asked how it would be with men of more civilized 

 habits, we are unfortunately obliged to confess that 

 there are no statistics whatever on the subject which 

 can give us any exact and trustworthy information." ' 



Dr. Mitchell, of the Edinburgh College of Physi- 

 cians, says of idiocy and its relations to marriages of 

 consanguinity, that in more than sixty per cent, of the 



1 Dr. T. A. McGraw's "Address on Heredity and Marriage, pp. 12, 

 13. 



