Human Physiology, 



When a man is to buy a horse say, a hunter he is ear- 

 nestly counselled to look for breed. Without what is called 

 " blood " that is, a particular line of parentage a hunter is 

 of no use. " Blood gives stamina, emulation, and intelligence; 

 and when the under-bred, lumbering beast is licked to a 

 stand-still, the wiry, well-bred ' weed ' will be going on, which 

 shows how even a weak specimen of the thoroughbred will 

 often give the 'go by' to an animal possessing more muscular 

 development, but lacking in aristocratic descent." 



But when a man is to " take a wife," or a woman to " accept 

 a husband" when it is a question of the paternity and mater- 

 nity of a family and a race, what is the consideration? "Good 

 family" is, in some sense, certainly considered by most people 

 of a certain position, but not by the greater number ; and even 

 by the middle and upper classes, money, or the position that 

 money can purchase, often goes for more than health or charac- 

 ter. Yet physiologists assure us, that "predisposition to any 

 form of disease, or any malformation, may become an inherit- 

 ance. Thus disease of the heart is hereditary ; so are tubercles 

 in the lungs ; so also are diseases of the brain, of the liver, and 

 of the kidneys ; so are diseases of the eye and of the ear. General 

 maladies are equally inheritable, as gout and madness. Lon- 

 gevity on the one hand, and premature deaths on the other, go 

 by descent. If we consider cases of peculiarities, more recon- 

 dite in their origin than these, we shall still find the law of 

 inheritance to hold good. A morbid susceptibility to con- 

 tagious disease, or to the poisonous effects of opium, or of 

 calomel, and an aversion to the taste of meat are all found 

 to be inherited. So is a craving for drink, or for gambling, 

 strong sexual passion, a proclivity to pauperism, to crimes of 

 violence, and to crimes of fraud." 



Scrofula, consumption, cancer, and syphilitic diseases are so 

 notoriously hereditary, that it is a serious moral question 

 whether any marriage ought ever to take place by which these 



