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HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



mothers during the period 1880-85, 458 were either stillborn or 

 survived only a short period ; thus, the proportion of infantile 

 mortality, due solely to syphilis, was no less than 40 per cent. 

 And, fifthly, it kills at a later age, when adolescence is already 

 reached. 



The abortions and premature accouchements due to syphilis 

 may occur repeatedly in the same woman ; thus, Fournier cites 

 the case of one of his patients who had no fewer than twelve 

 successive abortions, due entirely to the influence of syphilis. 

 In the same way, we find numerous families in which, in addition 

 to abortions, two, three, four, or more children have successively 

 been carried ofE in early age by the disease. We need only cite 

 a few examples given by Professor Fournier, and drawn from 

 the statistics furnished by different clinicians : 



Rate of Infant Mortality in Various Syphilitic Pamilibs (after 

 Professor Fottrnier). 



But although these figures are bad enough, there are worse. 

 Professor Fournier states that he can cite hundreds of cases in 

 which the entire family has been exterminated at birth by 

 syphilis. He gives from among his list thirty such cases, in 

 each of which every single child born has succumbed ; thus, in 

 some families there are eight deaths out of eight births, or ten 

 deaths out of ten births, or eleven deaths out of eleven births. 

 This infantile mortality is to-day recognised as so general a sign 

 of syphilis that it may be said that one of the characteristics 

 of the symptomatology of syphilis is the high mortaUty among 

 children. 



This result of syphilitic heredity varies according as the 



