Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    507/896 (page 43)
    the working out of all great reforms, cases of individual hard- ship must arise. I believe such are found in the working of the Factory Acts, the Education Acts, and others adopted for the general good ; but, mind you, the general good always comes back on the individual, and, after the first friction is overcome, there is a general feeling of wonder that the old state of things had been permitted to persist so long. But, putting aside such great measures which have so much to do with the establishment of public health, we will now narrow the question. In speaking of the influences which act for good or evil on the brain, I feel inclined to divide them sharply into two classes. First, those over which the individual has no control; and, second, those over which every man and woman can exercise control. In discussing the first class of influences it will be necessary for me to touch upon certain rather delicate points \ but I conceive it to be my duty to do so, as I find them con- stantly cropping up in daily practice : and, although as regards certain of them, advice may not materially influence action, still I consider it the business of a Health Lecturer to warn, in hope of guiding. The influences over which the individual has no control are those connected with his antecedents and upbringing. A man may be handicapped in life by the mistakes or faults of his ancestors; and, different from the race-horse, he has to carry weight in the race of life according to his imperfections, not according to his advantages. There is a pretty general consensus of opinion that consanguin- eous marriages are, on the whole, to be deprecated. It is a mat- ter of general observation, that the people living on or near the border dividing two countries are marked by strong physique, which observation supports the theory that the less closely man and wife are connected in race the greater probability there is of their off- spring being healthy. Attacking the question from the other end, there is sufficient evidence adducible that consanguinity of parents tends towards degeneration of race. When we turn to the lower animals constant instances present themselves, and the fact is gener- ally acknowledged by stock-farmers. As regards the human race.