ON BREEDING. 
3 
stocks that ever was produced, not only without diminishing- in 
size, but with a continual improvement. The prejudice that 
exists against breeding from the nearest affinities has been too 
much confounded with the laws and regulations that were ne¬ 
cessary, from political necessity, for the proper regulation of hu¬ 
man society. The only w ay in which degeneration could pos¬ 
sibly follow by breeding from the nearest affinities w r ould be by 
the increase of hereditary diseases. We have before alluded to 
the hereditary transmission of physical and moral qualities in 
animals by breeding: w e then shewed, that there were un¬ 
doubted links between father and son in the peculiarities of 
form and proportion; we shall find also, on investigation, that 
there is an hereditary transmission of corporal sufferings. 
It was formerly thought that hereditary diseases depended 
on certain morbific poisons; but of late years it has been proved 
that those diseases were not owing to any morbific matter, but 
to a particular conformation of structure, transmitted from the 
parents to the offspring*: therefore a superior breed of any 
kind can only be produced by excluding those that are affected 
with hereditary taint, otherwise all those natural deformities, 
both physical and moral, which spring up so quickly in the 
artificial life to which they are subjected, are transmitted to 
posterity, and tend by their multiplication to degrade the race: 
but no danger Can possibly exist when the parents are perfect; 
but, on the contrary, by breeding in and in their good quali¬ 
ties will be strengthened. 
Much has been said in the different publications on this sub¬ 
ject of the celebrity which Mr. Bakewell acquired by breeding 
from the nearest affinities; but the merits of the theory on 
which he acted are points on which parties hold different 
opinions. This is owning to the secrecy with which he carried on 
his business, and to the frequent degeneracy of the offspring 
* The opinion that certain diseases were hereditary has been held ever 
since the days of Hippocrates; and although this opinion is confirmed by 
the experience of mankind in all ages and countries, yet there arc not 
wanting opponents to the doctrine. The eccentric Dr. John Brown in 
particular opposed it. “ A taint,’’ he says, “ transmitted from parents to 
their offspring under the appellation of hereditary, is a mere tale, or there 
is nothing in the fundamental part of this (the Brunonian) doctrine. 
The sons of the rich, who succeed to their father’s estate, succeed also to 
the gout. Those who are excluded from the estate, escape the disease 
also, unless they bring it on by their own conduct. Though Peter’s father 
may have been affected with the gout, it does not follow that Peter must be 
affected; because by a proper way of life, that is, by adopting his excite¬ 
ment to his stamina, he may have learned to evade his father’s disease.— 
Elem . Med, 2d edit. vol. ii. 
