Consanguineous Marriages in the American PopulationArner, George B. Louis (George Byron Louis)
Science
Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population
Arner, George B. Louis (George Byron Louis)
Consanguinity -- United States
Insanity, on the other hand, is a disease which destroys or clouds an
intellect which has once been developed. It is true that certain
conditions of idiocy and imbecility do resemble that phase of insanity
known as dementia--a reversion to the original mental state of
childhood--in reality a form of second childhood. But the states are
not identical, although one may lapse into the other. One is defect,
the other disease; the imbecile in the former being the counterpart of
the dement in the latter, just as the moral imbecile is the analogue
of the paranoiac.[61]
[Footnote 61: Barr, _Mental Defectives_, p. 18.]
Of the strong inheritability of idiocy there can be no doubt. Dr.
Martin W. Barr of the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble Minded
Children has published an etiological table embodying the results of a
careful examination of 4050 cases of mental defect. Of these, 2651 or
65.45 per cent resulted from causes acting before birth, including
1030 or 25.43 per cent with a family history of idiocy and imbecility,
and 529 more (13.06 per cent) with a family history of insanity,
epilepsy and minor neuroses. Dr. Barr gives many instances
illustrating the heredity of imbecility, especially where both parents
were imbeciles, and had imbecile relatives. One case in particular
forcibly illustrates the disastrous results of the marriage of such
unfortunates. It is taken from the reports of the Connecticut Lunacy
Commission:
In one instance, where a pauper female idiot lived in one town,
the town authorities hired an idiot belonging to another town,
and not then a pauper, to marry her, and the result has been
that the town to which the male idiot belongs has for many
years had to support the pair and the three idiot children.[62]
[Footnote 62: Ibid., p. 99.]
Neuroses may remain latent for a generation and reappear in the
grandchildren of the person affected, or the latent tendency may never
reappear unless some disturbing factor such as scarletina, meningitis
or other acute disease attacks the weak spot. This possibility
suggests that the influence of heredity may be vastly greater than the
etiological tables would indicate. The apparent causes may be only
agents which assist in developing the evil really engendered by an
inheritance of imbecility.
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