342 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



(e,) Health. — Taken as a whole, the people may be said to be a 

 healthy one. Serious diseases, apart from accidents incident to their 

 callings, are but few in number; and the general physique of the 

 people speaks to a healthy active life. 



Consanguineous Unions. — A large proportion of the marriages come 

 under this heading, including not only those of persons within the 

 prohibited degrees, for which dispensations are obtained, but also 

 those which take place between people who are related in some recog- 

 nisable but hardly nameable degree. Cases of the first class, or those 

 which require dispensations, are of frequent occurrence, but seldom or 

 never take place between persons nearer of kin than third cousins. 

 The other cases, of course, are the most common of all, as from the 

 size of the population and its isolated position, every family must, 

 after a few generations, become more or less related to every other. 

 Marriages with strangers, though more numerous of late years, are not 

 common. The uniformity of strain does not appear to have produced 

 any effect except the great similarity of appearance already noticed 

 (p. 322) ; no cases of malformation or congenital disease are ascribed 

 to it. 



Diseases. — For most of the following facts I am indebted to the 

 kindness of Dr. P. J. Hart, the medical officer of the islands, who, 

 besides affording me much valuable information relative to the people 

 and their ailments, the result of his long experience of them, kindly 

 allowed me to look over his notes of cases. The main diseases may be 

 classed as follows : — 



Insanity. — There is at present no case of this among the natives of 

 the islands, nor has there been one since 1888 when a case which, 

 however, was not of long duration, occurred in Inishshark. 



Idiocy and Imhecility. — Properly speaking there is no idiocy ; but 

 there are two cases in which the persons, though shrewd and sharp 

 enough about most of their own affairs, yet show signs of mental want 

 in a sufficient degree to amount to slight imbecility. 



Epilepsy is not common, but two cases are known in one of which 

 the patient is subject to delusions, and always states, after a fit, that he 

 has been with the fairies on the mainland. Of the other no information 

 could be obtained except that the patient had had " fits." 



Deaf-mutism has not been known for years on either island, but a 

 case of temporary dumbness occurred on Inishshark in 1892. 



Blindness is equally rare, there being but one case, a man over 

 sixty years of age who acquired it late in life. 



