Degeneracy; its causes, signs and results.

  • Talbot, Eugene S. (Eugene Solomon), 1847-1924.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Degeneracy; its causes, signs and results. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4 DEGENERACY we be in begetting of our children ! In former times some countries have been so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a child were crooked or deformed in body or mind, they made him away ; so did the Indians of old by the relation of Curtius, and many other well- governed commonwealths according to the discipline of those times. ^ Heretofore in Scotland,' saith Hect Boethius, ' if any were visited with the falling sickness, madness, gout, leprosy, or any such dangerous disease which was likely to be propagated from the father to the son, he was instantly gelded ; a woman kept from all company of men ; and if by chance having some such disease she were found to be with child, she with her brood were buried alive' ; and this was done for the common good, lest the whole nation should be injured or corrupted. A severe doom, you will say, and not to be used amongst Christians, yet more to be looked into than it is. For now by our too much facility in this kind, in giving way for all to marry that will, too much liberty and indulgence in tolerating all sorts, there is a vast confusion of hereditary diseases, no family secure, no man almost free, from some grievous infirmity or other, when no choice is had, but still the eldest must marry, as so many stallions of the race ; or if rich, be they fools or dizzards, lame or maimed, unable, intemperate, dis¬ solute, exhaust through riot, as he said, they must be wise and able by inheritance. It comes to pass that our generation is corrupt, we have many weak persons both in body and mind, many feral diseases raging among us, crazed families ; our fathers bad, and we are like to be worse. This conception gradually developed into the widespread myth of a primevally perfect man