HEREDITARY INFLUENCE. 
555 
These matters are not out of place in a journal of compara¬ 
tive medicine, as comparative hygienics are intimately associ- 
ated with the food of the family. 
But as I purpose to write an article on the “ Happy Home,” 
I shall conclude what I have to say on food, by stating- that next 
to self-preservation, food is the next essential demand of life. 
HEREDITARY INFLUENCE. 
By Dr. W. Herbert Lowe, Paterson, N. J. 
A Paper read before the Veterinary Medical Association of New York County, at the 
Academy of Medicine, Oct. 7, 1896. 
The subject that I am to deal with to-night is one of far- 
reaching importance, both to mankind and to the animal in¬ 
dustry of the nation, but I am afraid that the ladies of New 
\ ork have stolen some of my thunder. 
One day last week, after making some notes on the subject 
of heredity, I picked up one of the New York dailies, in which 
was an account of the organization of a society for the preven¬ 
tion of hereditary diseases, not by a body of veterinarians nor 
other scientists, who peep through microscopes on the hunt for 
bacilli. Far from it. The members of this new society are 
young and marriageable women, who solemnly promise not to 
become the wives of men who have any hereditary taint. The 
fact that a man is rich will make no difference whatever, or that 
he has curly hair or a “ love of a mustache.” He may go on 
his knees in supplication, but they will be inexorable and'"their 
hearts will be as hard as Bessemer steel. The object and pur¬ 
poses of these young ladies is highly commendable, and will 
certainly be of incalculable benefit to this and succeeding gen¬ 
erations. If they propose to control and straighten out the\m- 
desirable love affairs of the world they have a very large con¬ 
tract on hand. 
While marriages of persons affected with hereditary dis¬ 
eases are as a rule beyond control in the human family, and 
while any legislation by the state would be considered as inter- 
