tice of the great majority of his fellows, it is insanity. Defective moral sense, the" stigma" which we have just considered, is found with remarkable frequency among criminals, as may be learned through the tables given on page 19, from the latest Year Book of the Elmira Reformatory. There is a frequent manifestation of moral imbecility or moral insanity, which when pronounced constitutes a well-known special "monomania.” The subjects of this peculiar type of mind have a strong tendency toward litigation, for the protection of their assumed rights and the punishment of such persons as make a stand against their egotism: in the law, they see merely an instrument for the accomplishment of their own selfish purposes. From an early age, they make themselves nuisances through their tendency to interference, and later in life, when crossed in their plans, they may become very dangerous. All individuals in civilized society are, to some degree, degenerates: through a weak and vicious ancestry, the seeds of degeneracy have been scattered broadcast and may, anywhere, develop into the rankest luxuriance; but, as a rule, it is along special family-lines that we find the notable phenomena of degeneration. In these families we observe a remarkable frequency of grim morbid conditions: insanity, idiocy, imbecility, eccentricity, hysteria, epilepsy, the alcohol-habit, the morphinehabit, neuralgias, "nervousness," St. Vitus' dance, infantile convulsions, stammering, squint, gout, articular rheumatism, diabetes, tuberculosis, cancer, deafness, blindness, deaf-mutism, color-blindness, and a number of other abnormal conditions less well known to the lay public. In these same families, too, we find an extraordinary abundance of physical malformations: marked asymmetry of head and face, defects and deformities of eyes, ears, nose, mouth, forehead, and chin, of teeth, jaws, and palate, of the trunk, and of the limbs.' The history of these families usually shows an accelerating intensification, generation after generation, of the fatal heritage until they have become extinct; but during their degenerate period, the members of these sick families, serving as morbific agents, have distributed among the race a wide-spread infection. As instances of the frequent rapid extinction of degenerate families, let us view the following history and two family-tables.' 'A young man of marked cancerous proclivity married a woman whose parents had both died of pulmonary consumption. This married couple had a family of five children, all of whom grew up to adolescence, sustaining at their best but delicate and feeble existences. The first of these children died of a disease allied to cancer, called lupus; the second, of simple pulmonary consumption; the third, owing to tubercular deposits in the brain, succumbed from epileptiform convulsions; the fourth, with symptoms of tubercular brain disease, sank from diabetes, the result of a nervous injury; and the last, living longer than any of the rest, viz., to thirty-six years, died of cancer. 1 Cf. La famille névropathique, Dr. Ch. Féré. Paris, 1894. 2 See p. 68. The parents in this instance survived three of the children, but they both died in early life-the father from cancerous disease of the liver, the mother from heart disease and bronchitis."'1 The following history illustrates the sad effect of intermarriage among the neurotic. "First Generation: Father intelligent, became melancholic, and died insane. Mother nervous and emotional. 66 Second Generation: Ten children. childhood. Three die in Seven reach maturity as follows: Daughter, A, a melancholiac; daughter, B, insane at twenty; daughter, C, imbecile; daughter, D, a suicide; son, E, imbecile; son, F, a melancholiac; son, G, a melancholiac. 66 Third Generation: A has ten children; five die in childhood, one is deformed, one has fits of insanity, one is eccentric and extravagant, two are intelligent and marry, but are childless. B leaves no issue. C has one child, a deformed imbecile. D has three children; one is an imbecile, one dies of apoplexy at twenty-three, and the third is an artist, described as 'extravagant.' E has two children; one dies insane, the other disappears, and is supposed to have committed suicide. F is childless. G has one child, who is imbecile.' In reflecting upon such records, we must bear in mind that usually but a small fraction of the truth has been told us. The general public has no con 1 Dr. S. A. K. Strahan, Marriage and Disease, p.185. London, 1 Taken from Dr. Strahan's work, p. 18 Attempted suicide. A Died in infancy. F. [Wife] F. 2 Ibid., p. 108. ception of the close connection between the vicious abnormalities observed in degenerate families: their existence is often overlooked and still oftener, when recognized, soon forgotten. To the general indifference and carelessness which offer such obstacles to the tracing of diseased inheritance, we must add the potent sense of shame which leads many to conceal such facts as are supposed to indicate family degeneration. There are families innumerable, especially in the most highly civilized centres, which are fast approaching extinction. Generation after generation, their mental and physical tendencies become more hurtful to the individuals and to the race until nature can tolerate these family-lines no longer. A distinguished alienist has recently given the following schematic representation of a gradual family-degeneration': First Generation: Acquired neuropathic condition, drunkenness, dissolute life (acquired moral degeneration). Second Generation: Congenital so-called neuropathic constitution, with its concomitant and consequent manifestations (general nervousness, hemicrania, chorea, simple epilepsy, hysteria, and hypochondria). Third Generation: Simple primary psychoses (melancholia, mania, paranoia, stuporous insanity, paralysis, etc.), and hysterical and epileptic insanity. Fourth Generation: "Organically" induced typical 1 Prof. Otto Binswanger, Volkmann's Klinische Vorträge, No. 299, p. 17. |