SYPHILIS ENTAILED.

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"The daughter by the second marriage, whose three organic systems were already affected with scrofula, had a sister eighteen months older, who had chronic otitis of the right ear; there was also a catarrhal state of all the mucous surfaces, and she was subject to intestinal worms.

"The father of these four children was the only remaining child: his three sisters died very young, and in his infancy he was very sickly. His development was very much retarded by a favus, which resisted different modes of treatment for several years. He joined the army at the age of eighteen, and his health improved; still, at the age of forty-two, his constitution was feeble, and his height smaller than usual: his chest was narrow; his voice husky; perhaps there was pectoriloquy. His father was the only survivor of six children.

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Condert, a patient at the hospital St. Louis, in 1829, was affected with several severe varieties of scrofulous diseases. The father of this young man had four children by his first wife, all of whom were healthy, and three by his sccond, all of whom had scrofula: our patient was one of them. The second wife had been married before, and had four children by her first husband, two of whom had pulmonary tubercles.

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Finally, I have seen the case of a man who married three times, and had scrofulous children only by his second wife. He had three children by this marriage, a boy, who entered the hospital St. Louis, and two girls: one of them died when ten years old, of a white swelling of the knee; the other had cervical tubercles in infancy, but enjoyed good health when forty years old. This man's children by his first and third wives were healthy.

"In May, 1837, Delpech died at the hospital St. Louis with tubercles, leaving four young children, all of whom died tuberculous in less than three months after their father; the eldest was less than seven years old.

"Five years since, I saw a very small and delicate child, who died when six months old, unable to gain sufficient nourishment, although everything was done to save her. I think the father of this child will not be more fortunate, as I treated him, twenty-four years since, for chronic hydrocephalus, and because he inherited scrofula from his father. This case shows three generations of scrofula in a quarter of a century. The third was extinct at its birth. In many of these cases, this third generation never sees the light: the mothers most generally miscarry, and some never bear a full-grown child.”

328. SYPHILITIC DISEASES TRANSMITTED.

The seventh commandment is written quite as indelibly in the human constitution as in the decalogue. Nor can man transgress it without incurring the most horrible penalties, to himself and offspring, possible for human nature to endure.

If these terrible consequences were confined to the offenders, they would be indeed appalling. But they, too, are "visited upon the third and fourth generations," 318 and generally erase the name and race of their perpetrator. Nor is the punishment too great for the crime.

I knew a young man, the son of virtuous parents, but whose mother had been infected with the venereal virus by a former dissolute husband, who was full of loathsome ulcers at and after birth. The disease finally located in his hip and knee joints, which were drawn out of shape in a dreadful manner, so that he could hardly hobble about, and his whole life was one of great suffering. The mother's health was much improved and blood cleansed by a transfer of the disease to her offspring. The children of the daughters of frailty in our cities and villages are almost always diseased. The great majority of our vagabond children are of this parentage, and most of them have scrofula in one or another of its forms, or some other loathsome disease or deformity, as all can see who will examine The children of licentious parents are often actually rotten with syphilitic ulcers at birth, and are the most pitiable objects upon which the sun shines. Such diseases, however, when not extremely aggravated, generally develop themselves in the form of scrofula, and as such are transmitted till they run out the families subject to them 327. Indeed, many physicians consider this disease as originating mainly in this vice, and one that, once introduced, rarely runs out in families till it has first run them out in their various branches. This doubtless exceeds the truth, yet there is no telling how frightful a source of disease it has become. Undoubtedly the children of virtuous parents by thousands die in consequence of lustful ancestors consigned to the tombs long before their afflicted descendants saw the light 318. And other kindred effects are attributed to any other than this the true cause. On the transmissibility of this disease, hear Lugol again.

"I have known scrofulous children whose parents have been syphilitic, or even were so when their children were conceived. On this point I am morally certain, and this is nearly equal to a physical certainty.

"In the hospital St. Louis we have a patient, named Guillien,

who is scrofulous, and affected with tubercles and caries; his father had been syphilitic several times, and was frequently troubled with sore throat.

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Young Dasailly had a scrofulous exostosis of the left tibia, and her mother had a similar affection. In another case, we saw at the hospital, a child ten years old, with scrofulous tubercles; her mother admitted she had primitive symptoms of syphilis, and that she was then affected with exostosis and syphilitic ulcers.

"The syphilitic origin of scrofula is still more marked in the following case that of a family of three children, where the two elder were well, and the third had scrofula. The last was eighteen years old, and was no larger than a child twelve years old, his growth having been retarded by scrofula. The difference between the health of our patient and that of his brother and sister, is worthy of remark; the father of these three children, when he led a regular life and enjoyed good health, had children who were vigorous and healthy. But some years after his habits became dissipated; at that time, while exhausted and syphilitic, having also infected his wife, he had a third child who was born scrofulous, and whose life was only a succession of uninterrupted suffering, till the age of eighteen, when he died of marasmus."

Other authors bear a kindred testimony. The world is full of practical examples of the evils of unwedded indulgence. The fact is notorious, that the crews of American and Euro-` pean vessels which visit the Pacific, shamelessly revel in lustful debauch with the native females of those islands, and have done so for many years, and the consequences are, that the syphilitic disease afflicts nearly all the inhabitants of both sexes and all ages, and destroys them so fast, that at the present ratio of decrease, in sixty years it will completely depopulate those once crowded and happy islands!

Whole provinces in India have also been nearly depopulated by a similar importation of this disease among the natives, by their intercourse with the English. I state this fact on the authority of eye-witnesses, and add to it, on the testimony of one who knows and has seen, that this disease is also ravaging China, introduced by licentious Caucasians. These races, being less powerfully constituted than our own, are swept off much more rapidly, and cured with greater difficulty. But it will yet prove too strong for us, unless seasonably arrested. RIGID VIRTUE is thus enforced upon pleasure-loving youth, in tones louder than the thunders of Sinai, and the passionate warned not to touch this forbidden fruit, lest their descendants,

as well as themselves, perish in consequence. Nor can either escape. Just as far as parents contract this virus, will their posterity, generation after generation 318, be tainted, and probably destroyed. A law as sacred as that of chastity, must not be violated-CANNOT, without incurring these terrible penalties. Let the young take heed to their ways, and avoid this awful calamity by keeping themselves uncorrupted by this luring passion.

SECTION II.

DISEASES IN GENERAL HEREDITARY.

329. GOUT AND APOPLEXY.

THE fact that consumption and scrofula are transmitted from parents to children, through many generations, presupposes that this hereditary principle of the transmissibility of some diseases, applies to all, on the ground of that wholesale principle already alluded to 324. Is nature so irregular as to perpetuate some, and not all? If thus partial, by what instru'mentality does she select one and omit another? Or, rather, how is it POSSIBLE for her to transmit sOME of the conditions of parents to offspring without transmitting ALL those of the former to the latter? She must operate by means of LAWS, and these laws must execute, with the utmost fidelity and universality, the WHOLE of what they execute any portion. Having, therefore, fully established the transmissibility of SOME diseases, a lower order of evidence is amply sufficient to establish the inheritance of other diseases.

GOUT is beyond doubt transmitted. This painful disease can indeed be engendered by luxurious living, in those whose parentage is wholly free from it, yet where one such origin of gout exists, twenty are caused by transmission. The great majority of those who are thus afflicted will be found to have both ancestral and collateral relatives similarly afflicted, as all can see who will make the requisite inquiries. Is not this point too clear and apparent to require fortification by means of detailed cases? Wherever gout is, there is our proof.

CANCERS-RING-WORMS-DYSPEPSIA.

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APOPLEXY, a near relative of gout, is also hereditary. Medical works cite many cases in point. A friend, in a recent walk, apologized for his slow pace by saying, that his limbs had been benumbed a few days before with a paralytic shock. His father and uncle had both died of paralysis. Like gout, apoplexy rarely occurs except when hereditary. And what is more, it makes its descent at about the same AGE in the descendants, at which it appeared in the ancestry 314 only a little earlier each generation, till the race runs out. This point is also too palpable to require proof by detailed facts.

330. CANCERS AND RING-WORMS.

A Mr. Rugg, of Heath, Mass., died a lingering death, of cancer. Soon after, his brother was taken down in the same way, and after having suffered beyond account, died of a cancer in his face.

A friend of the author had a cancer taken from her hand. Her cousin had a cancer cut out. A grandmother's sister, and one aunt, of these two, died of cancers.

Mrs. Kitteredge furnishes another example. She died of a malignant cancer, after it had eaten into her breast and vitals, and caused her to suffer intensely. One of her sons died of the same disease, and two of his daughters, when about ten years old, each had a cancer on the face. One of his brother's daughters has a malignant cancer on the face. She resembles her uncle; and he resembled his mother in complexion, stature, looks, etc., and of course, Mrs- K.

Other cases could easily be detailed, to any extent; but our subject does not require them. It is indisputable without. The ring-worm predisposition is also hereditary. A professional applicant of the author had a ring-worm which almost covered the side of his face, and was highly inflamed. His father died of a similar one; so did several of his own brothers and sisters, and also several relatives on his father's side.

331. DYSPEPSIA AND HEART AFFECTIONS.

DR. LYMAN BEECHER has always been troubled with dyspepsia, of a peculiarly obstinate and painful kind. His