Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1893-05-18
FROM PARENTS to FAMILY.
Though Local In OrlglA Certain Diseases
Are Apt to Become Hereditary.

Though Local In OrigIn Certain Disoasei
Are Apt to Become Hereditary.
The germ-cell theory, which meets
with the guarded approval of the emf
nent embryologists, Geddcs and Thorn
son, sufficiently accounts for the Won
derful continuity of germ cells (Which
thus resemble the protozoa infheir inn
mortality for the reappearance at long
intervals of time in family of some
formerly characteristic feature or Pc
culiarity, such as Roman nose, red
hair, somnambulism, left-handedness,
an extra finger and so on. And this
after years of fintermarriages with fami.
lies not related, so that one would eX-
pect that all the earlier traits had died
out Certain diseases are local in origin
and may yet become hereditary.
Thus, in many sunless Alpine val
leys, i'll drained and malarious,
where the only drinking water is cal
careous, derived from snow or glaciers,
goitre exists in both sexes for genera
tions, eliminating in cretinism, form
of idiocy. When an Alpine valley has
been put into good sanitary condition
and proper water provided, these dis
eases have disappeared from the place
and even victims to goitre have been
cured by being removed from their sad
environment early in life and have
bred healthy children. Thus also Nor
wegian lepers save their lives by emf
grating to America.
Diseases of malnutrition, such rs
gout, scrofula, cancer and tuberculosis,
require several generations for their
full evoltion, and this evolution my be
retarted or even wholly arrested, by
intermarriage with healthy persons of
another nonrelated family. Acquired
constitutional taints and alb
normal habits, as alcoholism,
kleptomania, when once firmly
rooted in an individual or
ganism, tend to propagate themselves,
like family features, and become here
ditary for several generations, even
when the original factors have ceased
to act. Thus the acquired habit of the
father may become natural feature in
his son or daughter, just as the puppies
of well-trained pointer or setter re-
quire but very little training to point
or ''sct." Deformities, superhuous digits
or toes and malformations in general
may be caused by accident to the
mother, by powerful mental impress
sions arresting or altering the develop
ment of the unborn child, and the child
born with any of these defects may be
come the parent or grandparent of an
infant having an exactly similar abnor
mality. But, fortunately for such fam
lies, these family marks" die out in a
few generations. For example, an aunt
and female cousin on the paternal side
of my family have each a fiattened right
thumb, but as both are childless, thi'
slight deformity will pass out of ex
istence in the present generation
There would, indeed, be a sadly rapit
degeneration of the civilized races o
mankind if the typical forms of heredi
tary diseases were as permanent as th'
normal types of man and woman. Wcr,
it otherwise, families, village com
munities, nations and eventually races
would become extinct in all parts o.
the world. But the tendency of thi
age is toward improved sanitation, bet
ter instruction and physical training o
infants and children, and, it is to b,
hoped, purer morality. A. study o
the registrar generals reports and o
the annual returns of the larger hos
pitfalls will demonstrate that great sue
cess in removing or rectifying deform
tiles and malformations has attended
the efforts of our surgeons, and that til,
average human life has been consider
ably extended. Homeopathic Review