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INSANITY , FAST AND PRESENT. 387
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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' « In The Last Number Of This Journal W...
nature " bore our hath griefs not and onl carried redeemed our our sorrows souls " and from who death , in but His is divine ever
present , to sustain , and y comfort us through every phase , of this our earthl In offering y pilgrimage a few . observations upon the transmission of insanity ,
or ratherthat certain hereditary idiosyncracies are predisposing causes to , the development of the malady , we think we cannot from
better article prefac on the e our subject remarks which than appeared by giving in the an British extract Quarterl an y
, Review " The of practical January , import 1859 : ance — of this subject , in a popular point of is deb ate able
viewconsists-in two facts : 1 stThat there a ground of mental , conditionwhich is not , insanity in the eye of the lawor
, , mental of the p soundness hysician , but and which 2 nd cannot That the possib various ly be forms spoken of of sli as ht perfect and g
severe mental affections ; , are , naturally interchangeable and transformable Insanity may become of by way imbecilit form of generation y , in mani the a , parent ; or thus ep , ilepsy may hysteri be in a represented the in one next generation or in third the .
any offspring deaf-dumbness either , & by c . a , ) similar by epilepsy affection , by , h b ysteri y disorders a , or b of y the the senses vague , and ( as will
undefined weaknesses or perversions of judgment , capacity , or , which we call unsoundness of mind . The general law with regard
to these isthatwithout special attention to the laws of hygiene , they increase , in , gravitand intensitfrom generation to
generation ; and thus young y persons who y weakly encourage hysterical habitsor the blind indulgence of impulses without the intervention
of serious will , disorders and conscience of intellect , are or lay mor ing als the in foundation after generations for the . most And
it is sad , yet certain , that there are individuals who , in their own person , inherit the sum of the perverted ¦ tendencies . of many generations
. " . theory Having is , unhapp again il recourse y , but onl to y too statistics well , exemp we out lified shall of four by find hundred facts that . It this and is
stated twenty by cases Dr . of Howe idiocy , of which Massachusetts came before , that his notice , he was able to obtain information respecting * the condition of the progenitors
some of three hundred and fifty-nine , * and all of these , with the exception of fourcould be traced to the lapsed moral or physical condition
children of the , parents of drunkards . Ninety or - of nine of these in whom poor the creatures craving for were stimu the - persons
lants was excessive . , Seventeen were known to be tlie children of bhose parents nearly less related closel by blood connected ; several ing were in degree the offspring from first of
3 ousins more to a more or remote y consanguinit , y vary ;¦ others again had vicious parents , or who from want , from penury , from distress descendants , had sunk in
_degraded jhe scale existence of social . life In , Am and erica bequeathed the numb to er of their idiots is frightfully a .
Insanity , Fast And Present. 387
INSANITY , FAST AND PRESENT . 387
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1861, page 387, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021861/page/27/
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