The first medical report of the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, presented to the Committee of Management, by the physicians of the institution.

  • Brompton Hospital
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first medical report of the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, presented to the Committee of Management, by the physicians of the institution. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Insanity* has been chosen, because its statistics are very accessible, whih no doubt can exist as to the frequency with which this disease is transmitte from parent to offspring. The result of the comparison is curious:—We fin that, in males. Insanity is an hereditary disease in nearly 12 per cent, of th cases observed, whilst Consumption is so in 18 per cent. In females. In sanity is hereditary in about 131 per cent.. Consumption in 36 per cent. I both sexes taken together, the per centage of Insanity is 12§, of Consumptio 24^. Thus the probability of Consumption being transmitted to the offsprin by a parent affected with that disease, is as twro to one when compared wit the probability of the transmission of Insanity from an insane parent. A remarkable fact may be noticed in Table No. XI., illustrating the iu fluence of sex on hereditary predisposition. Eighteen per cent, of the male refer their origin to Consumptive parents, whilst 36 per cent, of the female (or two females to one male) report their parents as having been Con sumptive; a careful scrutiny has failed to detect any error in the recordei observations. But the conclusion may be slightly modified, by supposiiq that females, being more domesticated, know more accurately, and can giv» better information regarding the histories of their parents. From these facts, however, the obvious conclusion is, that daughters an more liable to inherit Consumptive disease from their parents than sons in the proportion of two to one. In Insanity, this liability is shown bu to a much more limited extent, being little more than one and a-half pel * Table XIII. The following Table shores the source from whence the information contained it Table XII. is derived. Insane Here- Insane Here- Total. Males. ditary in Per Cent. Females. ditary in Per Cent. Cass. Here¬ ditary. Per Cent. Han well 397 51 12.8 281 27 9.6 678 78 11.5 Bloomingdale (U.S.) .... 1,090 118 10.8 751 89 11.9 1,841 207 11.2 New York .. 1,017 121 11.9 j 997 152 15.2 2,014 273 13.5 Morningside (Edin.) .. 107 20 18.7 90 17 18.8 197 37 18.8 Considerable uniformity in the results of observation by different persons is here manifested. It is more than probable, however, that the influence of predisposition operates amongst the insane to a greater extent, but that the difficulty of obtaining information causes it to appear thus limited.