HEREDITY AND RACE-IMPROVEMENT. 179 



is the best prophylactic against this fearful disease. Individuals pre- 

 disposed to scrofula require pure air, substantial tonic diet, and an atmos- 

 phere like that on the sea-coast of Northwestern Europe. Those who 

 are threatened with gout or gravel must oblige themselves to the 

 strictest temperance and take abundant exercise. Regularity and 

 uniformity of life are the rule for those predisposed to cancer. Per- 

 sons who reckon epileptics among their ascendants require the utmost 

 care. All their functions must be tranquillized ; they must allow them- 

 selves no excesses ; must avoid fatigue ; must guard against emo- 

 tional excitement — in a word, they must be always surrounded with 

 tranquillizing influences. Those predisposed to insanity are to be 

 treated in a similar manner, that is to say, with great gentleness ; and 

 their passions are to be stilled. The course of life best suited to them 

 is one which does not call for much intellectual activity, and which 

 holds out no visions of fame or fortune. Preventing or checking in 

 the individuals themselves the development of disease-germs is, how- 

 ever, but a secondary consideration ; the chief point is, to prevent the 

 migration of these germs into new generations. But, to attain this 

 result, we must not only multiply and facilitate marriages which shall 

 be in conformity with hygienic and moral laws, we have furthermore 

 to discourage alliances the fruits of which can only be of blighted 

 constitution in body and soul. Physicians ought to use all their in- 

 fluence to prevent the intermarriage of persons evidently predisposed 

 to the various forms of neurosis, to tubercle, scrofula, etc. When the 

 ascendants of one of the parties are hereditarily of a morbid consti- 

 tution, the physician should at least insist on the importance of hav- 

 ing the other party perfectly healthy, possessed of great vigor, and, 

 above all, of a temperament the reverse of that of his or her partner. 

 In this way the danger of hereditary taint is diminished, though it 

 were better not to incur such danger at all. But this is a point 

 of so delicate a nature that we cannot dwell upon it here. We must, 

 however, say something about consanguineous marriages, a subject 

 which has given rise to much warm controversy during the past few 

 years. Some physicians, and among them Broca and Bertillon, hold 

 that races which are least mixed, which are purest, are better fitted 

 than crossed races to withstand the causes of degeneracy. According 

 to them, the evil consequences charged on consanguinity are the re- 

 sult of very different agencies, especially the hereditary affections of 

 the ascendants. Trousseau and Boudin, on the other hand, say that 

 marriages between individuals of the same stock oftentimes yield un- 

 healthy fruits — lunatics and idiots. The balance would appear to have 

 been struck in favor of the first opinion. It was but the other day, 

 that Auguste Yoisin, in making inquiries of the relatives of more 

 than 1,500 patients in the Bicetre and the Salpetriere, found that in 

 none of these cases could the disease be attributed to consanguin- 

 ity. If the latter had been so infallible a cause of degeneracy, 



