OF

HEREDITARY DISEASES.

HEREDITARY diseases do not naturally and necessarily attend the human race. Leprosy, madness, gout, scrofula, sprung out of certain habits and practices; they were all acquired, and probably will be eradicated. Leprosy, originating in the want of personal cleanliness, has already given way to the improvements which have taken place in that respect linen is now substituted for woollen in many articles of dress, and other regulations equally friendly to cleanliness, have caused leprosy almost to disappear. Madness is an increasing malady; it has its origin in anxiety, or it is the consequence of other diseases; it is sometimes wholly recovered from, but unfortunately a tainted constitution propagates its like, and no means have hitherto been discovered to prevent it. Celibacy is a

virtue in persons whose progenitors have been thus afflicted: and even when it does not reach as far as madness it may give a peculiarity of character and talent, I have sometimes enquired into the family history of youths of extreme dissipation, and so often have found some part of the family at one period or other afflicted with madness, that I now seldom pass my judgment of such characters till I am first assured they are moral agents. I have little doubt that madness is the cause of more vice than is imagined. The subject merits the attention of moralists. What parent can answer for the conduct of his child if this be the case? for education is but a feeble check to the slightest madness. Madness is an evil so various in its mode of operation, so difficult to remove, so distressing in all its branches, that it ought to be a subject of genéral care that it does not spread: as it had an origin, it may also have a remedy; if this be not discovered, the families that are afflicted must become extinct, for the world cannot be moralized so long as madness exists.---The gout is not a disease of the poor, and need not be of the rich; it enters a family, or leaves it, at pleasure.---The scrofula is the offspring of a cold

and fickle climate: the plan adopted in many families from the advice of Locke, of attempting to make the children hardy, by thin clothing and spare diet, has in many instances given birth to this malady; it makes its appearance at the close of winter and is suspended by the warmth of summer. As soon as the malady is noticed, recourse is had to the liberal use of wine, and by this means the external appearance of the disease is occasionally removed; but may it not be doubted whether consumption has not sometimes had its origin in this practice? would it not be more advisable to clothe and lodge children warm, to keep them on nutri tious diet, and at the age of 10 or 12 gradually to give up this plan, and substitute a diet suffi ciently nutritious but less stimulant? By this means the disease is combated before it has disturbed the system; the constitution is strengthened, consumption is guarded against, and inju rious habits are prevented. A scrofulous family is always consumptive. Should a young person have been drinking freely of wine to repel any external mark that may appear, and should symptoms of consumption take place, instantly wine and bark, and those remedies calculated to remove scrofula, are abandoned for milk and

vegetables. Plans so opposite cannot be proper. That any regulations in diet will eradicate the disease I do not expect, but a better acquaintance with the properties and influence of the climate, as the cause of the malady, which the active spirit of research of the present day warrants the expectation of, may lead to other and more effectual remedies.

I have dwelt thus long on this subject for the sake of pointing out these diseases as not being necessarily connected with the constitution of man.

Contrary to what might have been expected, hereditary diseases are great promoters of population; the world is considerably more full in consequence of their existence. The Jews, through whose veins leprosy flowed, increased faster than any other nation is said to have done. In a few districts in the north of Europe, scrofula prevails as much as leprosy did among the Jews, and children are as numerous. Particular families, subject to either of these diseases, are commonly very prolific; it counteracts, in a considerable measure, the influence of those causes that have a tendency to occasion sterility, and keeps in existence names that would otherwise have been extinct.

The gout may be acquired in any country, and becomes hereditary; but in cold climates it is most frequent and most severe. The Spaniards, afflicted with this disease, frequently remove to Mexico, as I have been informed, and find some mitigation of their suffering in the warmth of the climate. The Greeks were not unacquainted with the gout, and their opinion accorded with ours, that devotion to Bacchus at once gave birth to the malady, and disposed the martyr to a continuation of homage. Families that possess hereditary gout are seldom childless.

Madness is a disease not altogether of the same nature as those just mentioned; it respects the connection of the mind with the body: and I have not sufficient knowledge of the subject to advance a confident opinion respecting its influence on fecundity.

From the above facts and observations, it is evident that certain diseases so far influence the body as to be propagated, which could not happen if the principle of increase was, as Mr. Malthus intimates, a given quantity: that which is liable to alteration may be increased or diminished. Hereditary diseases, experience teaches, hasten those evolutions in the system