THE HEREDITARY TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE.
Thetopics of Incontinence, Celibacy, and Marriage, having been severally considered relatively to their effects on society, viewed alike also as to their influence on the health and happiness of the sexes in general, another equally engrossing one naturally presents itself for inquiry to every thinking and sensible person who may contemplate, or be about embarking in what the world deems “a serious speculation,” matrimony, namely, the probability of issue, and how far the health of the progeny may be influenced by that of the parents. That conception requires the necessary aptitudes in both man and wife is indisputable; and that although such capacities are rarely absent, still all unions are not prolific; hence the inference, that some cause must exist to account for such infertility.
It may be local or moral, as elsewhere in this volume explained, which not being the main purport of this paper, needs no other allusion beyond the mere reference. The prevailing resemblance between parents and children in features, form, voice, and even constitutional peculiarities, is sufficiently well known to satisfy any one of the similar possibility of the transmission of disease, or sound health. “It is of great consequence to be well-born; and it were happy for human kind, if only such persons as are sound of body and mind should be allowed to marry.”
We find in Boethius’s work, “De veterum Scotorum Moribus,” that anciently, in Scotland, if any were visited with the falling sickness, madness, gout, leprosy, or any such dangerous disease, which was likely to be propagated from the father to the son, he was instantly gelded; a woman kept from all company of men; and, if by chance, having some such disease, she were to be found with child, she with her offspring was buried alive. The Spartans destroyed all weakly and deformed children.
Great as the anxiety may be to perpetuate our identities, to create new objects on whom we may concentrate all our affections and love, and who, when born to us, so instinctively bind us the more to this already attractive world, where is the man who does not feel humbled and mortified at beholding in his anxiously looked-for offspring, the unfoldingof infirmity and disease? We are content to encounter the ordinary chances of mortality, let but our children bear the impress of health, and possess the shape of perfect man; but sad and desolating are the reflections that spring from observing in our issue the developments of the evils we have nurtured in ourselves. How many existing beings are there, inhaling the breath of life, in whom every respiration feeds the flame of disease, ignited by those from whose loins they sprung, and is hastening them to a premature tomb. How many are there, secluded from the enjoyment of that, which being deprived of by some scrofulous, pestilential, or other hideous deformity, renders them like isolated wanderers on the earth, and for ever forbids their participation in the main charm of existence—social intercourse. How many living specimens of human prototypes, in whom reason is obliterated, or never dawned, drag on an existence inferior in enjoyment to the forest-hunted beast, or the animal whose life is yielded for the nutriment of man. And are not the diseases that involve so calamitous a result, consumption, scrofula, gout, idiocy, or insanity, traceable in particular families, to the remotest periods of their ancestral records? And should not then a knowledge of cause and effect, like that just detailed, induce individuals about to fulfil one of the purposes to which they were certainly destined, for the perpetuation of their own race, if only from the pride of human nature, well to consider the result of such a consummation? The health of either party is generally omitted among the categories bandied about preliminary to the completion of the other, though decidedly not more important, arrangements of the nuptial contract; or if it should not be, many infirmities, that are well known to descend hereditarily, are (granted in some cases not premeditatedly, but from ignorance of such a result) yet carefully concealed. Cutaneous blemishes, incipient tubercles, or a scrofulous predisposition, which may be likened to the germes of a fruitful plant sown in a torpid soil, lie in ambush, and await some genial transplantation to display their productiveness, which matrimony, by the analogous change which it effects in different constitutions, speedily encourages. In this manner, other morbid phenomena are aroused from their lurking place, whether it be in the brain, the lungs, or the blood, and transferred to those who succeed us.
I need not, therefore, waste a line prefatory to, or apologetic of, the following illustrative definition of health, by which any one with tolerable acumen may estimate the probable “worth of a life,” or, at all events, be spared the plea of ignorance, or misplaced confidence, when taking a step of such importance as wedlock. There are numerous means of calculating upon the durability of human life, by an examination of the countenance, the gait, the attitude, the form, the skin, the temperament, the breathing, the speech, the sleep, and in fact, to a practised professional eye, there is not much difficulty in observing some diagnostic mark, if sickness be secreted in the constitution. The countenance in health varies with the age. Health is indicated by a plump, not puffy or bloated state of the face, a fresh complexion, and an absence of that depression around and particularly below the eye, so observable in persons of sick health. The nose should not be “pinched,” as it were, at its junction with the face, nor should there be deep indentations, called furrows, or wrinkles, at the angles of the mouth or eyes, which rarely are manifested in healthy individuals, except they be aged through care or time. Many people part very reluctantly with each succeeding year, and few conform to the outward symbols of age. The era was when age was honorable; now few aspire to it, and such is the deception that would be practised, that the coffin-plate is the only tell-tale.
If the teeth have dropped out or decayed, the lower jaw will be observed to be more elevated, the lips drawn inward over the gums, and the chin and nose approximating each other; the cheek bones will also be very prominent, and the skin thereon shiny and tightly drawn: these are pretty fair characteristics of disease, or old age. The temperaments modify the complexion. In the sanguine, it is florid and soft; in the bilious, dark and rigid; in the phlegmatic, lax and pallid; and the nervous is modified by its general union with the two former. In health, the countenance is expressive of contentment and gayety, which indicate a happy state of mind, and healthy condition of body. In ill-health, it is pale and expressive of languor and sadness, signifying discontent and nervous debility. Where asthma exists, or other nervous affections of the chest prevail, there is pallidness or lividity, a worn-down and distressing look, and in consumption, in addition to the above, there are alternately, on the slightest exertion,gentle flushings. A bluish tint of the skin denotes some organic affection of the heart. In dropsy, the countenance is bloated, or of a waxy puffiness; and in acute indigestion, there is a lividity of the lips, nose, and cheeks. A slow and cautious step, a bending of the body, a laxity and flabby feel of the muscles of the arms, chest, and lower extremities, a tumid abdomen, or a swelling of the feet and ankles, are no indications of health. Tremulous hands mark age, nervousness, or intemperance. Hurried breathing, palpitation of the heart, frequent attacks of perspiration, sleeplessness, are all symptomatic of weakness, hysteria, or disease. Persons subject to bleedings, are usually of a waxy paleness, and soft fibre. Allowances must be made for females during the menstrual period, whose complexion, at that period, being less clear and fair, is marked by a dark areola around and below the eyes, the breath is slightly tainted, and a languor is evidenced in all their actions. A voracious or scanty appetite, a dry and shrinking skin, a furred and loaded tongue with indented sides, signify the digestive organs to be deranged. In long-standing dyspepsia, the nose, feet, and hands, are generally cold. Emaciation is an infallible diagnostic of disturbed health, and a bloated state equally characteristic. Fits, gout, rheumatic disorders, asthma, occasional brain affections, diseases of the bladder, &c., can not be considered as warranties of health.
Lastly, with respect to intemperance, the bloated appearance, the tremulous state of the muscular powers, the fetid breath, and the sunken eye, sufficiently identify the cause, to arrest all doubts on the subject. Where intemperance exists in married life, it is the bane of all comfort and enjoyment; and heaven help the unhappy partner of such a companion. There is but one consolation, that every indulgence of this insane practice tends to sap and break up the powers of the constitution, and hastens the close of such a union. The drunkard should be reminded, that “some leaves fall from the tree every time that its trunk is shaken;” and the dreary nakedness of winter is brought on, long before that season would have commenced in the regular course of nature.