Increase of lunacy : and special reasons applicable to Ireland / by Edward D. O'Neill, Medical Superintendent, Limerick District Lunatic Asylum.

  • O'Neill, Edward D.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Increase of lunacy : and special reasons applicable to Ireland / by Edward D. O'Neill, Medical Superintendent, Limerick District Lunatic Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Physicians that in the greater-aujgaber cases of insanity an Heredity predisposition lies at the hottom of the malady. Luys (2) says— Heredity governs all the phenomena of mental pathology with the same results and the same energy as we see it control moral and physical resemblances in the offspring. Of the 3,947 admissions last year 961 were attributed to this cause. Consanquinity has an important bearing on heredity to which I would wish to call attention. In the early ages blood marriages were very common with the Medes, Tartars, Persians and Egyptians, who not only married their sisters, but their daughters and their mothers. In the twentieth century marriaee of the children of brothers and sisters to the children of brothers and sisters is almost as unnatural. The offspring of such marriages are generally tainted either mentally or physically. Stock-breeders will not allow of inbreeding amongst cattle, yet with human beings .the law permits the marriage of cousins ! In America each state appears to make its own laws as regards marriage. In New York an uncle may marry his niece, or an aunt her nephew ; in Kentucky the marriage of cousins is forbidden. Insane, Epileptic, and Neurotic people are allowed to marry. This unnatural procedure will continue until Legis- (2) Traite clinique et pratique des Maladies Mentales, Paris 18S1, p. 214