Arkansas true Democrat., 1858-07-06
Marriages of Cousanguinitv.

Dr. 5. M. Bemes, of Kentucky, during the recent session of the National Medical Associa. ton, Tn Washington City, read an able and n- terestng report on the influence of marriages of consangulDlty upon offspring, from which the following Is published, by the Washington Union:
 Your reporter has made great effort to ascer ta'h the proXlmate per centage of the deaf and dumb and blind in our asvlums. who are the descendants of blood intermarrages. This eff. fort has not been successful from the difficulty pnnclpals of such institutions lin gainino the requlte facts. Parents are often sensitive on thls score; and it Is delicate matter for nrinc. pals to attempt investigations which the friends of the benetciaries suppose to be unauthorized by the regulations of their various institntiors fee however, that my researches give me authority to say, that over ten per cent. of the deaf and dumb, and over five per cent of the blind, and near fifteen per cent, of the idotc in our State institutions for subjects of those defects are offspring of kindred parents.
 Aside from the facts which have gained by corresponding with gentlemen who have given close attention to those points, curious but perfectly legitimate process of computation con- firms me in the opinion that those estimates are very nearly correct. The classes c. D. E. F. | - riages of cousins, two hundred and forty six of which have given issue to deaf and dumb blind,
 diotic or insane children Admitting the same ratio to prevail, the Ohio report which contains one hundred and tiftv-seven marriages of cou- sins, followed by deaf and dumb, blind, diotic or insane offspring, would indicate the existence of three hundred and thirty-two other mar. riages of cousins in the popu aton not followed by such defects. The counties which furnish this one hundred and ftty-one marriages, as above, and are supposed to comprise in their | limits three hundred and thirty-two unreported marriages, making total of four hundred and eighty three, contained in 1850 population of one million, five hundred and twenty. eight thousand, two hundred and thirty eight In the same ratio hesupposed to exist throughout the Union, there would be found to the twenty millions of white inhabitants six thousand, three + hundred and twenty y-one marriages of cousins, giving birth to three thousand, nine hundred and nine deaf and dumb, bnd idotic and in- sane children, distributed as follows:
 Deaf and dumb. lll9 | Bllnd. ................ 94S ........ 1,oof | Insane .......... '''... 266 | Then, if the figures of the last United States census still applied to our population, there would HOW be found in the Uniom- 1 5, 9,l3b deaf and dumb, of whom l, ll6, or 128 per cent. are children of cousins
 161S blind, of whom 648 or O9 1 per cent are children of cousins
 14,257 id"tc, of whom 1,844, or 12 63 per cent, are children of cousins
 l4972 insane, of whom 269, or Gl per cent are children of cousins
 | invite the attention of gentlemen of this association to this calculation of probabilities of either confute or confirm it by any facts in their ! possession.
 very cursorv examination of the tables of my report will suffice to show that pa,i-passu which the increment of same blood, the sum of defects of offspring s likewise increased.