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affected with otorrhoea from the right ear. The four brothers were evidently troubled with the same disease, viz., with catarrhal scrofula. The two eldest had in the eyes what the others had .1 their ears.

"Twice I have had to treat, in my wards, two sisters affected with tuberculous scrofula of the neck. In both cases, the younger sister presented the disease in the rudimentary state, as it had commenced in the elder sister. The latter, in both cases, had large tuberculous tumors. I have frequently seen similar cases in the city, and have often noticed distinct small tubercles in the cervical region in children, whose brothers and sisters had very apparent tuberculous tumors in the same regions.

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In 1827, I saw the case of a young girl who inherited scrofula from her mother and maternal grandmother. She had obstinate ophthalmias, and was affected with scrofulous ulcers in the commissures of the lips. She had a sister, five years old, in whom ophthalmia existed. I was consulted, ten years since, by a young man, nineteen years old, from Naples, affected with a double ophthalmia of the loose edges of both eyelids. A year afterward I saw his sister at Paris. She had ophthalmia similar to that in her brother, but it was much less severe.

"Fredel, nineteen years old, with tuberculous ophthalmia, had lost five brothers or sisters, who were still-born, or who died at an early age. Another brother, who was small and humpbacked, could not stand erect, though he ate voraciously; he died when seven years old, of convulsions. Another sister died when twelve years old. There were still two sisters, one fifteen, the other twelve years old, both of whom, as also their brothers, had tubercles and ophthalmia.

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Gachet, whom we cured of two abscesses in the right coxal region, had eleven brothers or sisters, nine of whom had died, most of them while nursing.

"I have published the case of a young scrofulous individual, who had lost three brothers and sisters, and had four others affected, like himself, with scrofula. Also that of a scrofulous patient, who had a sister dying at the age of nine years, with caries of the vertebræ, and who had two sisters younger than himself, whose growth, like his, had been arrested; and that of a young man, sixteen years old, whom we cured at the hospital St. Louis of a fistulous white swelling of the right knee. This scrofulous person had lost eleven brothers or sisters, who died very young. He had a brother, fourteen years old, of a delicate constitution, and a sister, thirty years old, who was said to enjoy good health.

"When speaking of a scrofulous constitution, we mentioned a young lady from the department Cher, thirteen and a half years old, who was an only daughter, having lost a young brother and sister, and who was herself affected with serous infiltration of the eyelids. In August, 1831, I attended a young lady, nineteen years

old, who had been affected with tubercles and ophthalmia for five vears. She had frequent attacks of coryza, and incrustations in the hose; the skin was fat and hypertrophied; the hair scanty and badly nourished. The mother of this young person died of pulmonary tubercles when thirty years old. Five children diea young; a sixth perished, when nineteen and a half years old, of pulmonary tubercles.

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“Madame Deslingchamps had borne sixteen boys and girls. Of these fourteen had died, most of them being not more than five years old.

Twelve years since, I treated the only son of a lady who had eleven children. This patient, nineteen years old, had a white swelling of the right foot. His mother died of a pulmonary complaint, a few years previous.

"This girl was an only child, having lost an elder sister, who died when thirteen years old, covered with abscesses after an attack of the variola; a brother with hydrocephalus, who died when two years and a half old, and another brother, who died at the age of eighteen months. Her paternal uncle had had eight children, six of whom had died already. Only two remained, one of whom was affected with tubercles, and was much emaciated; the other was very delicate."

He very satisfactorily confirms these conclusions by citing cases in which the same scrofulous parent had scrofulous children in two and more marriages, and others which showed that a healthy parent had by one marriage with a healthy companion healthy children, and by another scrofulous partner, scrofulous children—a description of cases both most interesting in themselves and demonstrative in their bearing on the question at issue. His citations are as follows.

"The father of this young man-a scrofulous subject-had six children by a first marriage; all were tainted by scrofula. He had six by a second wife; all were exempt from this malady.

"I knew a robust man who married two sisters, both of whom had pulmonary tubercles: he had scrofulous children by each marriage. By the first wife he had two, one a boy, who died when three years old, of disease of the mesenteric glands, and the other a girl, who died when twelve years old, of rachitis and pulmonary tubercles. He had three children by his second wife, who died of consumption; two of them at a very early age, while the third, when four years old, was so weak as still to require nursing.

"The next case is that of a scrofulous father having scrofulous children by two wives, both of whom were healthy.

"The offspring of the first marriage had a brother who was delicate, and whose development was very slow in every respect.

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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.

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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. too great for the crime.

Nor is the punishment

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.

"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 European 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,