336 NATURE AND LIFE. 



alienation represents a quarter of all those who are thus 

 diseased. Moreau (of Tours) and others state that the 

 proportion is even greater. Heredity in madness does not 

 merely comprise direct transmission of insanity properly so 

 called ; hysteria, epilepsy, chorea, idiocy, hypochondria, may 

 proceed from madness, and it may in turn reproduce them. 

 In their passage from one generation to another, these 

 various diseases of the nerves become in a manner mutually 

 transformed. 1 Herpin, the Genevese, noted, among the an- 

 cestors of two hundred and forty-three epileptic subjects, 

 seven epileptics, twenty-one insane, and twenty-four per- 

 sons affected with cerebro-spinal diseases. Georget draws 

 the conclusion, from numerous observations made at la 

 Salpetriere, that hysterical women almost always had 

 among their near relatives those who were hysteric, 

 epileptic, hypochondriac, or insane. Moreau dwells on 

 the very frequent occurrence of morbid nervous conditions 

 among the ancestors of the idiotic and imbecile. A single 

 fact will suffice to convey some conception of the various 

 and strange complications following on the transmission by 

 descent of nervous disorders. Dr. Morel attended four 

 brothers of the same family. The grandfather of these 

 children died insane ; their father was quite incapable of 

 fixing his mind on any thing ; their uncle, a distinguished 

 physician, marked by high intellectual power, was noted 

 for his eccentricities. Now, these four children, sprung 

 from the same stock, exhibited very differing forms of psy- 

 chical disorders : one was a madman, subject to periodi- 



1 Mere alcoholic intoxication may be transformed into serious nervous 

 diseases. Children conceived in an acute attack of drunkenness are 

 often epileptic, insane, idiotic, etc. These facts have been remarked since 

 very ancient days. A law of Carthage forbade any other beverage but 

 water on the day of marital cohabitation, and Amyot says, " Drunkenness 

 begets nothing of any worth." Late and accurate researches prove that 

 a child begotten even in a mere passing fit of intoxication always bears 

 ineffaceable marks of more or less grave degeneracy. 



