PROCEEDINGS OF THe SECTIONS. 201 
In the third case, the parents are described as uneducated, and 
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tioned, nothing could be learned as to the grandparents or other 
relations of the children, nine in number, three belonging to each 
family, who were the product of sexual intercourse between brother 
and sister. It is somewhat remarkable that the whole nine were 
idiots of the lowest type, dirty in habits, unable to utter an articu- 
late sound, and so paralyzed and deformed as to be unable to walk. 
In connection with these cases, I may mention that Dr. 
Bemiss (whose inquiries in this direction are well know n, and who 
publishedasummary of them in the second volume of the “ Transac- 
tions of the American Medical Association”) obtained particulars of 
thirty-one children born in the United States of brother and sister, 
or parent and child, and of these, twenty-nine were defective in one 
way or another, nineteen were idiotic, one — five scrofulous, 
and eleven deformed ; and the same inquirer found that of 
2,778 children born of first cousins, 793 were defective, 117. deaf 
and dumb, sixty-three blind, 231 idiotic, twenty-four insane, forty- 
four epileptic, 189 scrofulous, and nine deforme 
The question of the full Goa of idiocy and imbecility due 
to hereditary influence is an interesting one. Forty-one of the 
of twenty-five eg cases in the Hospital at Newcastle in which 
there is famil sanity, making sixty-six cases out of 220, or 
somewhat less i one-third. If full information could 
obtained i 
cases could be traced to hereditary insanity or mental weakness. 
oe cases of which I have given pearticulars go towards 
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Ist. ist. That idiocy, in a large proportion of ais is not an acci- ~ 
dent, but is due to hereditary influence, and is the result of the 
natural laws governing this. Of the oriiney of these laws and 
the importance of their bearing on the facts of human life we 
have a full conviction, though we are unable exactly to define 
their processes ; and the pathological action of hereditary influence 
is as difficult and obscure as the physiological action thereof. 
2nd. That cases of direct heredity of imbecility or idiocy are 
fully as common as those in which it is transmitted in the collate- 
ral or eluate form, which is opposed to the view of Dr. Seguin, 
a great authority on this subject, who remarks—“‘I have not, to 
family of one of my patients an aunt, or much oftener, a grand- 
father, afflicted with idiocy, or at least —— 
3rd. That double heredity is, as might be ve ce much more 
aneaye than where the taint exists on one vide only . 
