The Arizona sentinel., 1902-01-01
"Intermarriage of Diseases"
Editor SENTINEL.

Editor SENTINEL:
 A whole volume could be filled with
 the superstitions concerning consump-
 tion alone: the means of preventing it's
 transmission, avoiding its contagicn
 and postpcning it's necessarily fatal
 end. Now we know that it is not ne-
 cessarily fatal; that it is not at all con-
 tagiOus-not even inoculable; that it is
 not directly transmitted-that it is not
 even primary disease, but only the sequence of several diseaSes-an ex-
 pression, simply, of debility, heredita- ry or acquired, which renders the Sys-
 tenn unable to throw off the original affection. We treat it simply by hy- giene, by foods and fresh air, by build-
 ,ng the body up. Less than fifty years ago they bled patients for the cure of consumption. In the annals of Louie XIV, two centuries ago, is an account of the illness with consumption of one of the principal ladies of the court. Or 1 consultation the doctors bled her in the arm. Next week they bled her again this time in the temple; strange to re- late she was still worse on the follow l ing week, and the consultation was more anxious still. But there were re- sources in medicine in the days of the grand emperor. The doctors bled her again, this time in the toe; they never | bled her any more. A disease, like the | individual in whom it is located, has genealogy; it has au ancestry of nor bid conditions, all commingled and transmitted from sufferer to sufferer, until, by inherited dispositions accumu- lating and combining in definite pro- portions, altering for good or evil ac- cording to the soil on which it grows, g new one is produced. This, in few words
 stripped ofits technicalitiesa and depriv- ed, unfortunately, also, of the wealth Of illustration with which it is accompa- nied. is Sir James Paget's ingenius theory Its attractions are undeniable it's plausibility great; and though the author in addressing professional au dience fOrebCre deducting a moral, the lessons which it irresistably suggests are too plain to escape notice.
 That children inherit the courage, cowardice, prodigality, frugality, face. figure, complexion, tone of voice, and talents the parents is, of course, truism. It is equally certain that dis eased parents bequeath their frailties to their offspring. Scrofula. cancer. lupus, consumption, epilepsy, rheuma- tism, gout, insanity, cretinism, albin- ism, are among the most familiar Of the diseases and defects which run in families. A craving for alcohol is recognized morbus handed down from father to son, while listlessness, sloth and mpracticability are as readily transmitted as capacity for work and a clear brain from one generation to another. A prudent person hesitates to marry a consumptive or member of family in which insanity has ap- peared, thus acknowledging the sound ness of the data mentioned. Ccnsan- guinity is believed, and justly so, to intensity the risks of transmission, though only because there is a chance Of near relatives, such as cousins, being tainted with the same family trouble. Yet little care is taken to avoid dan gercus internarriages of diseases-to use the phrase which pr. Benjamin Richardson has so happily coined. If both parents have tendency to the same e-malady the children can scarcely escape. But if cancer and consump- tion exist there is hardly a hope of the offspring escaping early death CT life long misery from cancer. lupus, con- sumption, tuberculosis of the brain, epilepsy, diabetes from nervous injury or some variation or com binatiOn of all l these. The intermarriage of rheuma- tism and consumption is productive of hydrocephalus and diseases of the bony framework of the body, such as the hip-joint disease so common among weakly children. The state does not in modern times as in a more heroic l age, exercise control over marriage. | It is therefore all the more imperative on those who are swayed by some re- gard for posterity not to neglect in marriage every consideration save those of affection, wealth, position or social fitness, when their own future | sorrow and that of another generation | are involved in their neglect of the laws of nature. If our lawmakers | would only take this matter into con- sideratiOn and enact such laws prohib- iting the indiscriminate marriage of | cCnstitutionally diseased persons, the coming generations would call them blessed.
 w. T. SEXSMITH, NJ. D.
 Yuma, December 27, 1901.
 New Century Comfort.