Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-09-18
HEREDITY AND HEALTH
THE VIEWS OF FAMILY DOCTORS
AND LIFE INSURANCE MEN.

opOh lew uucSllOIS litlNt
men been SO divided as upon the possi-
| bility of inheriting disease. opinion
on this subject has undergone much
| change within the last fifteen or
twenty years, but even to-day doc
tors are not unanimous on the sub
ject. Then, again, there is another
class of scientific people who theo-
rize regarding the phenomena Of phys
ical life. and conduct laboratory eXper
iments These men call themselves
biologists, and they are unquestion-
ably a learned lot. Yet their conclu-
sions are often different from those
reached by the physicians. In gen
eral, it may be said that biologists
incline to accept Weissmann's doc
trine that acquired traits cannot be
transmitted to progeny, while medi-
cal men, though differing as to details,
have more or less confidence in the
possibility Of inheriting physical in
flrmities.
The discovery of bacteria as the
cause Of most maladies has had
revolutionary influence upon the old
doctrine of inheritance regarding tu-
berculosis. Once it was believed that
a whole family was hopelessly doomed
IL either of the parents died of this dis
ease. "We have ripped that notion
up the back" said the medical ad-
wiser Of leading insurance company
the other day. "Phthisis is n contag-
ious disease, and results from associa-
tion with a victim of that trouble. l
should sooner look for it In the hus-
band than in the child of a woman
who was thus affected"
The doctor who passes on the appli-
cations made to another company put
the case less radically. He attached
some Importance to the fact that par
ents had died of consumption. Even
granting that it is purely a contagious
malady, offspring sometimes appear to
inherit a susceptibility or an abnor
mally low power of resistance to it. 1t
is asserted that even when the chill
dren Of tuberculosis parents are wide
ly separated in their youth, and grow
up apart, larger percentage of them
develop the disease than that of other
peoples children. The preponderance
is not marked perhaps, but there are
those who believe that it exists. This
same expert remarked, however, that
formerly his company did not regard
a man reasonably safe from inherited
consumption until he was forty years
old, whereas they would take him now
with little hesitation at thirty-fve, if
he then showed no signs of the NAL
ady. Both theory and practice are un-
degoing slow changes ON this point,
apparently.
Insanity is not regarded as bacter-
ial disease, and yet it has n physical
basis. THE brain undergoes local or
general changes in structure. The dis
order cannot be acquired by associa-
tion with other victims of it, but many
experts believe in the possibility of in
heriting tendency to insanity and its
first cousin, epilepsy. Doctors recog-
nize what they call the "insane dia-
thesis" or a predisposition to insanity,
and then take q good deal Of stock in
the notion that this is an inherited
weakness. Most life insurance COM
panies discriminate sharply against
applicants whose ancestry exhibits
two or three cases of insanity, or one
of insanity and one OF epilepsy.
Cancer is another affiiction which
to offspring, but that view of it is now
almost entirely abandoned. Occasion
ally there are cases of death from
this cause in mother or father and son
only q few years apart. But, sugges-
tive as such a coincidence is. doctors
do not all interpret it alike. One of the
leading life insurance companies of
this country, which puts its terms up
where consumption or insanity ap-
pears in the parents or grandparents
history, ignores cancer except in the
applicant himself.
These are the three diseases to which
the most attention is given by these
companies in considering the infirm-
tiles Of parents and grandparents.
Still, it is asserted that lack of long
evity, Bright's disease and other
| signs of weakness appear to be char
acteristic of some families and not of
others. There is little evidence of the
Inheritance of predisposition to apo
plexy. Indeed. this trouble, which is
due primarily to a weakness Of the
walls of the arteries, has been found
to be about equally characteristic of
persons whose weight is abnormally
great and those who are abnormally
light.
A great deal has been written of al
coholism and heredity. Some of the
expressions on this subject are eX-
travagant and misleading. 1t is par
ticularly interesting to note whether
drunkenness or other moral failngs
develop in parents before or after
their children were born. In the lat
ter case heredity would seem to afford
an inadequate explanation of bad hab-
its or disease. Nevertheless, there is
much evidence that in one way or an
other immortality affects offspring. 1t
does so chiefly by impairing the phyi-
cal stamina Of the latter, and rarely
= tal