Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1890-03-05
aIN LIks f:Y EArHER. D
The Fooiishness Of Persons who Live Un
der an Ancestral Shadow.

Ths Fooiishness Of Persons who Live Uu
der an Ancestral Shadow.
'T'm just like my father; shall di,
young"
. The speaker was playing the arrant fool
and told him so, writes Harkley Harkel
in the New York Weekly. He was biz
ailing, had been for some months of color
! l called on him in his sick-room and found
him much depressed. He had the notion
} that he had inherited "a short-iived consti-
tution," whatever that may be. The life
insurance people had asked him, in their
curious catechism, whether he resembled
his father or his mother the more strongly,
and il either, which. This was revela.
ton to him; he had never thought of il be-
fore. He concluded that he resembled his
father, who had died at thirty years of age.
Ny friend is already forty-six His ply
sician assured both his wife and me tha;
nothing gravely threatening was the mat.
ter with him. We found-his devoted wife
and THAT his father had died of fever
contracted on the Isthmus But il is no use
the poor Ounce has the notion that he is to
fade away "like his father.n OF course
this is nervous fatigue, nothing moro nor
less; it is incipient nervous prostration But
the item Of heredity in the case presents a
common delusion.
People presume on longevity as well, be-
cause they 'come Of long-lived family"
Singularly, gentleman boasted this other
extreme to me the week before last. He
was quite sure OF advanced age, "because
his father, grandfather, and away back ali
his ancestry were long-livers." And vet as
Iwrite, that very gentleman is dead.
am certain that both hope and fear are
inspired, without reason and against r:l
son, by the popular notion. 1t may be true
that longevity or short life is inherited but
the trace is sofeeble that in the bsttleC lie
II IS not worth either eXpectingor dref ~
II you get such notion into your head is
fatuous demon. Your father, for in
stance, died at sixty years of age. u
will dread the epoch. You will erect a
stone wall of fatalism for yourself righ:
there Unconsciously to yourself YOU will
continually be calculating upon it with ap
prehension. You will not talk about Il
even to your wife, till you have approached
your ffty-eighth year; then, as you get
trifie worn, and perhaps sick, some day.
you will let out your fear. 1t will torture
your loved ones; it will battle your physi
clans as they wonder what can all you, and
you are ashamed to tell them. 1t win actu-
ally cripple your nervous force, subtract
from your stock of vitality; and there is lit
tie doubt that the pure, unmixed foolish.
ness may hasten your death. Your father
will have had nothing to do with your
death; but you may hasten your own death
by psychic depletion. There is far more
evidence that men do actually cause their
own premature death by apprehension
than that hereditary limit causes it.
To presume that you inherit the longevity
Of d grandfather who lived to four-score is
even more absurd. It may not have been
vitality with the old gentleman at all. He
may have had a no more powerful organism
than ordinary men. But a quiet, unevent
ful life, exceptionally free from any heavy
slrain, may have kept his heart throbblng
nc long. II you are hard pushed and over
doing; If you solace your alarm by refer
ring your guilty mind back to the shadowy
g randsire rather than taking wholesome
rest, the probabilities are that YOU will
snap your handspring before you know it.
The theory will make one more victim, and
You sre the man. Theory is one thing, but
facts are better. Quite likely your grand
II other will tell you that you look and act
)iaer at forty-five than her husband did a.
,lTry. You i've IN more excltlng ana ex-
aCting age. You are a city man; he was
1Clntry man. You like fancy dishes; he
lonely food. You sleep mornings; he
ights. You are fretted by money, as by
politics; no was fretted by nothing worse
JhSsn al Gnruly OK oc q shower ON his new
mown nay, You are housed in shop; or
factory, or Office, ith the devltalzed air of
modern furnace heat; ne, this noble octo-
genarian, lived among mountains, or
bresthsd the breath OF the wide, wide sea
Do 0Ct presume on the venerable fellows
5hat went before you; there is a temptation
and q snare IL it every time.
Every man must sail his own ship. In
,he name Of the kind Creator, do not think
1oU are gong to cough your LIE away be-
,ause consumption is hereditary in our
family Facts show that the decided major
ty of victims of this terrible malady are the
original cases; no talnt can be discovered
n ancestry. Think of it, The majority of
l reassert, are the first cases
n the family. 1 have it on good au
hority in pulmonary maladies that de-
'idedly the vast ajority of the offspring of
finally die of other diseases.
t 10 not TO he denied that there is a law OF
leredity in disease. But the children pre-
disposed TO toconsumption, for instance, being
are forearmed 10 caution; talk
ng excellent care of themsClv they oll-
asst their more thoughtiess neighbors.
over eighty per cent of the insane
re original casea; that is, III neither branch |
Il the family, WITHIN three generations, can !
,e found an insane ancestor. l will not at
empt figures, but medical authority tells us
hat disease of the heart, the liver, the kid
ley is almost always original.
Reader, live under no ancestral shadow. |
i've in your own sunshine. A merciful
Creator has given US each our day. The ,
lead can neither hinder nor help us much
Ne nave our chance. Each life is unique
n its own individual beauty or deformty.
I is my fathers good example, which, ad-
hiring, / purposely copy, which benefits
ne. 1t is the heritage OF his worthy name
hat helps me, more than blood or gold 1t .
s the subtle copying of his virtues or vices
hat no doubt is powerful impulse. To be
Ike my father in character IL quitepossible;
'ut even this must seek after with reso-
ute purpose. The bugbear Of hereditary
rief life is too shocking, is cruel fetish Of
uasi-science that would be glad TO drive