INTERMARRIAGE OF DEAF OK BLIND 65 



or hereditary Heart Disease, etc., etc., have 

 been tried, with the uniform result that in 

 a few years all the descendants were so af- 

 flicted that finally the family died out. 



Dr. J. Kerr Love, in his exhaustive 

 treatise on "The Causes of Children Be- 

 coming Deaf in Great Britain," states the 

 causes : 



' ' First — meningitis ; second — ^hereditary 

 syphilis." 



There are 58,000 blind persons in the 

 United States. Of these, about 50% are the 

 result of heredity and about 30% from 

 social diseases; about 20% from inbred 

 marriages and other causes. 



Will anyone question that it is the duty 

 of the United States Government to pass 

 laws that will prohibit two hereditarily 

 blind persons marrying, or the marriage of 

 two hereditarily deaf persons, or of one 

 blind person, who is hereditarily blind, 

 marrying into a family whose past history 

 shows hereditary blindness ; or, one hered- 

 itary deaf mute marrying into a family 

 whose past history shows hereditary deaf- 

 ness? Science, however, is now gradually 



