388 ORIGIN AND TRANSMISSION 



many well autlicntlcated examples*. There is an heredi- 

 tary blindness in a family in North America, which has 

 always affected some individuals for the last hundred years f. 

 I have attended, at different times, for complaints of the 

 urinary organs, a gentleman, whose father and grandfather 

 died of stone. 



In small and secluded communities, where marriages take 

 place within what we may regard only as a more extensive 

 family, hereditary varieties are blended, and produce one 

 form, which prevails through the whole circle. The opera- 

 tion of this principle may be clearly perceived in several 

 small districts : it will act with more efficacy, and conse- 

 quently, be more discernible in larger collections of men, 

 where differences of manners, religion, and language, and 

 mutual animosities, forbid all intermarriages with surround- 

 ing people. In the course of time the individual peculiarities 

 are lost, and a natural characteristic countenance or form is 

 established, wliich, if the restrictions of intercourse are ri- 

 gidly adhered to, is constantly more and more strengthened. 

 The ancient Germans, according to the description of Taci- 

 tus, were such a people ; and his short, but expressive 

 sketch of their character, most aptly confirms the preceding 

 view : " Ipse eorum opinionibus accedo, qui Germanise po- 

 pulos nuUis aliis aliarum nationum connubiis infectos, pro- 

 priam et sinceram et tantum sui similem gentem extitisse 

 arbitrantur. Unde habitus quoque corporum, quanquam in 

 tanto hominum numero, idem omnibus ; truces et caerulei 

 oculi, rutilae comte, magna corpora." De Morib. Germ. 4. 

 The Gipsies afford another example of a people spread over 

 all Europe for the last four centuries, and nearly confined in 

 marriages, by their peculiar way of life, to their own tribe. 

 In Transylvania, where there is a great number of them, 

 and the race remains pure, their features can consequently 

 be more accurately observed : in every country and climate, 

 however, which they have inhabited, they preserve their dis- 



* Hallf.r, Elem Phusiol. loc. cit. 



i Nnc York Medical Repository, v. iii. No. I. 



