RESULTS OF CONSANGUINITY 117 



a concomitant of the Mgher forms of the family."^ The eventual 

 prohibition of incest and other forms of near consanguinity was 

 due to the growth of religious ideas, and especially of totemistic 

 beliefs, and not at all to physiological reasons, as M. Durkheim 

 has shown.2 



In China, the land of tradition far eoccdlence, no man may 

 marry a woman of the same family name — " a law which places 

 a barrier against the progress of the harmful results of con- 

 sanguinity. . . . One may judge of the efiectiveness of this 

 ordinance when one remembers that there exist only about 

 500 different family names in China. The extraordinary power of 

 resistance possessed by the Chinese race is probably due in part 

 to this institution." 3 Dr. Schallmayer adds that, on the other 

 hand, intermarriage with foreign peoples is also prohibited among 

 the Chinese; an ordinance which likewise prevents racial de- 

 generacy — at least, as far as women of a biologically inferior race 

 are concerned. 



The genealogy of the family of a Dr. Bourgeois, reported by 

 M. Delage, shows that this family originated in 1729 from a con- 

 sanguineous marriage. After 130 years of existence, out of 

 91 marriages which had taken place, 68 were consanguineous, 

 and of these 16 were marriages of accumulated consanguinity. 

 In the 23 non- consanguineous marriages the mortahty of children 

 under seven years of age was 15 per cent., while it was only 12 per 

 cent, among the children of the 68 consanguineous unions. 

 The only defects observed among 416 individuals were two cases 

 of epilepsy, one case of imbecihty, one of accidental mental 

 alienation, two cases of consumption, and one case of scrofula, 

 derived from a non- consanguineous parent. Thus we have a total 

 of five organic forms of disease, one accidental form, and one 



1 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 629. 



2 E. Durkheim, Im Prohibition de I'lnceste et ses Origines, in L' Annie 

 Sociologique, tome i. Paris, Alcan, 1898. 



^ W. Schallmayer, Vererhung und Auslese im Lebenslmif der Volker, 

 pp. 198, 199. Jena, 1903. 



