398 NATURE AND LIFE. 
scrofula. The changes that occur in the physiological bal- 
ance of the individual act decidedly upon the progress 
and the appearance of constitutional disorders. Thus in- 
sanity very often makes itself known just after menstrua- 
tion, pregnancy, or childbirth; epilepsy and hysteria in 
like manner become active at the time when the signs of 
puberty first appear. Education and manners have a simi- 
lar influence. Cruel treatment and extreme severity, as 
also utter want of discipline and of watchful care, often 
produce lamentable effects on the brain of young children. 
Alcoholic indulgences and high living are fatal to per- 
sons born of parents afflicted with gout and gravel; while 
poverty and unwholesomeness in their surroundings deci- 
mate those who bear the seeds of consumption within 
them. 
At any rate, the destructiveness of hereditary diseases 
is a sad and striking fact, known in all its mournfulness only 
to those who are called every day to observe its conse- 
quences. One needs to see the premature infirmities, the 
wasting sufferings, the irredeemable misfortunes, the keen 
and lingering anguish to which parents often doom their chil- 
dren while they believe they are transmitting to them the 
blessing of life, if one would judge of the might of that 
fell spirit of disease lurking in the inmost depths of their 
being. One must read the authors who have written on 
these subjects, and especially our learned French special- 
ists in insanity, to gain acquaintance with that mysterious 
and maleficent potency which that frail and innocent being, 
the object, for one fleeting moment of illusions, of every 
joy, and blessing, and smiling hope, so often brings as its 
companion when it opens its eyes to the light of day. 
Asa general statement, it may be said that hereditary 
transmission, either of personal peculiarities in anatomical 
structure and in temperament, or of aptitudes to take on 
one or another morbid state, which also depends on certain 
