The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother Part 12

A peculiar apt.i.tude for procreation is sometimes hereditary. The children of prolific parents are themselves prolific. It is related that a French peasant woman was confined ten times in fifteen years. Her pregnancies, always multiple, produced twenty-eight children. At her last confinement she had three daughters, who all lived, married, and gave birth to children,--the first to twenty-six, the second to thirty-one, and the third to twenty-seven. On the contrary, sometimes a tendency to sterility is found fixed upon certain families, from which they can only escape by the most a.s.siduous care.

LONGEVITY.

In the vegetable kingdom, the oak inherits the power to live many years, while the peach-tree must die in a short time. In the animal kingdom, the robin becomes grey and old at ten years of age; the rook caws l.u.s.tily until a hundred. The a.s.s is much longer-lived than the horse.

The mule ill.u.s.trates in a striking manner the hereditary tendency of longevity. It has the size of the horse, the long life of the a.s.s. The weaker the a.s.s, the larger, the stronger, and the shorter-lived and more horse-like the mule. It is also a curious and instructive fact, that this animal is the toughest after it has pa.s.sed the age of the horse: the inherited influence of the horse having been expended, the vitality and hardiness of the a.s.s remain.

It is universally conceded, that longevity is the privileged possession of some lineages. That famous instance of old age, Thomas Parr, the best authenticated on record, may be mentioned in ill.u.s.tration. It is vouched for by Harvey, the distinguished discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Parr died in the reign of Charles the First, at the age of 152, after having lived under nine sovereigns of England. He left a daughter aged 127. His father had attained to a great age, and his great-grandson died at Cork at the age of 103.

DEFORMITIES.

Deformities are undoubtedly sometimes transmitted to the progeny. It is by no means rare to find that the immediate ancestors of those afflicted with superfluous fingers and toes, club-feet, or hare-lips, were also the subjects of these malformations. There are one or two families in Germany whose members pride themselves upon the possession of an extra thumb; and there is an Arab chieftain whose ancestors have from time immemorial been distinguished by a double thumb upon the right hand.

Darwin gives many similar instances. A case of curious displacement of the knee-pans is recorded, in which the father, sister, son, and the son of the half-brother by the same father, had all the same malformation.

PERSONAL PECULIARITIES.

Gait, gestures, voice, general bearing, are all inherited. Peculiar manners, pa.s.sing into tricks, are often transmitted, as in the case, often quoted, of the father who generally slept on his back with his right leg crossed over the left, and whose daughter, whilst an infant in the cradle, followed exactly the same habit, though an attempt was made to cure her. Left-handedness is not unfrequently hereditary. It would be very easy to go on multiplying instances, but we forbear.

HOW TO HAVE BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN.

A practical question now naturally suggests itself. How can the vices of conformation be avoided, and beauty secured? The art of having handsome children, known under the name of _callipaedia_, has received much attention, more, perhaps, in years gone by than of late. The noted Abbot Quillet wrote a book in Latin on the subject. Many other works, in which astrology plays a prominent part, were written on this art in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

We have already stated that well-formed parents will transmit these qualities to their children, with scarcely an exception. Like begets like. Unfortunately, all parents are not beautiful. Yet all desire beautiful offspring. The body of the child can be influenced by the mind of the parent, particularly of the mother. A mind habitually filled with pleasant fancies and charming images is not without its effect upon the offspring.

The statues of Apollo, Castor and Pollux, Venus, Hebe, and the other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses which were so numerous in the gardens and public places in Greece, reproduced themselves in the sons and daughters of the pa.s.sers-by. We know also that marriages contracted at an age too early or too late, are apt to give imperfectly-developed children. The crossing of temperaments and of nationalities beautifies the offspring.

The custom which has prevailed, in many countries, among the n.o.bility, of purchasing the handsomest girls they could find for their wives, has laid the foundation of a higher type of features among the ruling cla.s.ses. To obtain this desired end, conception should take place only when both parents are in the best physical condition, at the proper season of the year, and with mutual pa.s.sion. (We have already hinted how this can be regulated.) During pregnancy the mother should often have some painting or engraving representing cheerful and beautiful figures before her eyes, or often contemplate some graceful statue. She should avoid looking at, or thinking of ugly people, or those marked with disfiguring diseases. She should take every precaution to escape injury, fright, and disease of any kind, especially chicken-pox, erysipelas, or such disorders as leave marks on the person. She should keep herself well nourished, as want of food nearly always injures the child. She should avoid ungraceful positions and awkward att.i.tudes, as by some mysterious sympathy these are impressed on the child she carries. Let her cultivate grace and beauty in herself at such a time, and she will endow her child with them. As anger and irritability leave imprints on the features, she should maintain serenity and calmness.

INHERITANCE OF TALENT AND GENIUS.

The effects of inheritance are perhaps more marked upon the mind than upon the body. This need not surprise us. If the peculiar form of the brain can be transmitted, the mental attributes, the result of its organization, must necessarily also be transmitted.

It is a matter of daily observation, that parents gifted with bright minds, cultivated by education, generally engender intelligent children; while the offspring of those steeped in ignorance are stupid from birth.

It may be objected, that men the most remarkable in ancient or modern times, as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakspeare, Milton, Buffon, Cuvier, etc., have not transmitted their vast intellectual powers to their progeny. In explanation, it has been stated that what is known as genius is not transmissible. The creation of a man of genius seems to require a special effort of Nature, after which, as if fatigued, she reposes a long time before again making a similar effort. But it may well be doubted whether even those complex mental attributes on which genius and talent depend are not inheritable, particularly when both parents are thus endowed. That distinguished men do not more frequently have distinguished sons, may readily be accounted for when it is recollected that the inherited character is due to the combined influence of both parents. The desirable qualities of the father may therefore be neutralized in the offspring by the opposite or defective qualities of the mother. That contrasts in the disposition of parents are rather the rule than the exception, we have already shown. Every one tends to unite himself in friendship or love with a different character from his own, seeking thereby to supplement the qualities in which he feels his own nature to be deficient. The mother, therefore, may weaken, and perhaps obliterate, the qualities transmitted by the father. Again, the influence of some remote ancestors may make itself felt upon the offspring through the operation of the law of atavism, before alluded to, and thus prevent the children from equaling their parents in their natural endowments. Notwithstanding the workings of these opposing forces, and others which might be mentioned, we find abundant ill.u.s.tration of the hereditary nature of talent and character.

Of six hundred and five names occurring in a biographical dictionary devoted to men distinguished as great founders and originators, between the years 1453 and 1853, there were, as has been pointed out by Mr.

Galton, no less than one hundred and two relationships, or one in six.

Walford's _Men of the Time_ contains an account of the distinguished men in England, the Continent, and America, then living. Under the letter A there are eighty-five names, and no less than twenty-five of these, or one in three and a half, have relatives also in the list; twelve of them are brothers, and eleven fathers and sons. In Bryan's _Dictionary of Painters_, the letter A contains three hundred and ninety-one names of men, of whom sixty-five are near relatives, or one in six; thirty-three of them are fathers and sons, and thirty are brothers. In Fetis's _Biographie Universelle des Musiciens_, the letter A contains five hundred and fifteen names, of which fifty are near relatives, or one in ten. Confining ourselves to literature alone, it has been found that it is one to six and a half that a very distinguished literary man has a very distinguished literary relative; and it is one to twenty-eight that the relation is father and son, or brother and brother, respectively.

Among the thirty-nine Chancellors of England, sixteen had kinsmen of eminence; thirteen of them had kinsmen of great eminence. These thirteen out of thirty-nine, or one in three, are certainly remarkable instances of the influence of inheritance. A similar examination has been inst.i.tuted in regard to the judges of the Supreme Court of Ma.s.sachusetts, and other American States, with like results. The Greek poet aeschylus counted eight poets and four musicians among his ancestors. The greater part of the celebrated sculptors of ancient Greece descended from a family of sculptors. The same is true of the great painters. The sister of Mozart shared the musical talent of her brother. As there are reasons, to be detailed hereafter, for believing that the influence of the mother is even greater than that of the father, how vastly would the offspring be improved if distinguished men united themselves in marriage to distinguished women for generation after generation!

INFLUENCE OF FATHERS OVER DAUGHTERS; OF MOTHERS OVER SONS.

We have already called attention to the parts of the physical organization transmitted by the father and by the mother. It would seem, moreover, that each parent exercises a special influence over the child according to its s.e.x. The father transmits to the daughters the form of the head, the framework of the chest and of the superior extremities, while the conformation of the lower portion of the body and the inferior extremities is transmitted by the mother. With the sons this is reversed. They derive from the mother the shape of the head and of the superior extremities, and resemble the father in the trunk and inferior extremities. From this it therefore results, that boys procreated by intelligent women will be intelligent, and that girls procreated by fathers of talent will inherit their mental capacity. The mothers of a nation, though unseen and unacknowledged in the halls of legislation, determine in this subtle manner the character of the laws.

History informs us that the greater part of the women who have been celebrated for their intelligence, reflected the genius of their fathers. Arete, the most celebrated woman of her time, on account of the extent of her knowledge, was the daughter of the distinguished philosopher Aristippus, disciple of Socrates. Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was a daughter of Scipio. The daughter of the Roman emperor Caligula was as cruel as her father. Marcus Aurelius inherited the virtues of his mother, and Commodus the vices of his. Charlemagne shut his eyes upon the faults of his daughters, because they recalled his own. Genghis-Khan, the renowned Asiatic conqueror, had for his mother a warlike woman. Tamerlane, the greatest warrior of the fourteenth century, was descended from Genghis-Khan by the female side. Catherine de Medicis was as crafty and deceitful as her father, and more superst.i.tious and cruel. She had two sons worthy of herself,--Charles IX., who shot the Protestants, and Henry III., who a.s.sa.s.sinated the Guises. Her daughter, Margaret of Valois, recalled her father by her gentle manners. The cruel deeds of Alexander VI., the dark records of which will for ever stain the pages of history, are only rivaled in atrocity by those of his children, the infamous Borgias. Arete, Hypatia, Madame de Stael, and George Sand,--all four had philosophers for their fathers. The mother of Bernardo Ta.s.so had the gift of poetry. Buffon often speaks of the rich imagination of his mother. The poet Burns, 'Rare Ben Jonson,' Goethe, Walter Scott, Byron, and Lamartine,--all were born of women remarkable for their vivacity and brilliancy of language.

Byron, in his journal, attributes his hypochondria to a hereditary taint derived from his mother, who was its victim in its most furious form; and her father 'was strongly suspected of suicide.' He was said to have resembled more his maternal grandfather than any of his father's family.

The daughter of Moliere was like her father in her wit and humor.

Beethoven had for a maternal grandmother an excellent musician. The mother of Mozart gave the first lessons to her son. A crowd of composers have descended from John Sebastian Bach, who long stood unrivaled as a performer on the organ, and composer for that instrument. It may be remarked here, that it is almost invariably true that the ability or inability to acquire a knowledge of music is derived from the ancestry.

Parents who cannot turn a tune or tell one note from another, bring forth children equally unmoved 'with concord of sweet sounds.' Examples could easily be adduced at still greater length, ill.u.s.trating the direct influence of the father over the daughter, and of the mother over the son. Those given will suffice.

INFLUENCE Of EDUCATION OVER INHERITED QUALITIES.

In correcting the evil effects of inheritance on the mind, education plays a very important part. A child born with a tendency to some vice or intellectual trait, may have this tendency entirely overcome, or at least modified, by training. So, also, virtues implanted by nature may be lost during the plastic days of youth, in consequence of bad a.s.sociations and bad habits.

Education can therefore do much to alter inherited mental and moral qualities. Can it be invoked to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits, and secure the good? Everything that we have at birth is a heritage from our ancestors. Can virtuous habits be transmitted? Can we secure virtues in our children by possessing them ourselves? Science sadly says, through her latest votaries, that we are scarcely more than pa.s.sive transmitters of a nature we have received, and which we have no power to modify. It is only after exposure during several generations to changed conditions or habits, that any modification in the offspring ensues. The son of an old soldier learns his drill no more quickly than the son of an artisan. We must therefore come to the conclusion with Mr.

Galton, that to a great extent our own embryos have sprung immediately from the embryos whence our parents were developed, and these from the embryos of their parents, and so on for ever. Hence we are still barbarians in our nature. We show it in a thousand ways. Children, who love to dig and play in the dirt, have inherited that instinct from untold generations of ancestors. Our remote forefathers were barbarians, who dug with their nails to get at the roots on which they lived. The delicately-reared child reverts to primeval habits. In like manner, the silk-haired, parlor-nurtured spaniel springs from the caressing arms of its mistress, to revel in the filth of the roadside. It is the breaking out of inherited instinct.

TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE.

Perhaps the most important part of the subject of inheritance, is that which remains for us to consider in relation to the transmission of disease, or of a predisposition to it.

Consumption,--that dread foe of modern life,--is the most frequently encountered of all affections as the result of inherited predisposition.

Indeed some of the most eminent physicians have believed it is never produced in any other way. Heart disease, disease of the throat, excessive obesity, affections of the skin, asthma, disorders of the brain and nervous system, gout, rheumatism, and cancer, are all hereditary. A tendency to bleed frequently, profusely and uncontrollably, from trifling wounds, is often met with as a family affection.

The inheritance of diseased conditions is also _influenced by the s.e.x_.

A parent may transmit disease exclusively to children of the same s.e.x, or exclusively to those of the opposite s.e.x. Thus, a horn-like projection on the skin peculiar to the Lambert family was transmitted from the father to his sons and grandsons alone. So mothers have through several generations transmitted to their daughters alone supernumerary fingers, color-blindness, and other deformities and diseases. As a general rule, any disease acquired during the life of either parent, strongly tends to be inherited by the offspring of the same s.e.x rather than the opposite. We have spoken of the apparently reverse tendency in regard to the transmission of genius and talent.

ARE MUTILATIONS INHERITABLE?

How, it may be inquired, is it in regard to the inheritance of parts mutilated and altered by injuries and disease during the life of either parent? In some cases mutilations have been practised for many generations, without any inherited result. Different races of men have knocked out their upper teeth, cut off the joints of their fingers, made immense holes through their ears and nostrils, and deep gashes in various parts of their bodies, and yet there is no reason for supposing that these mutilations have been inherited. The _Comprachicos_, a hideous and strange a.s.sociation of men and women, existed in the seventeenth century, whose business it was to buy children and make of them monsters. Victor Hugo, in a recent work, has graphically told how they took a face and made of it a snout, how they bent down growth, kneaded the physiognomy, distorted the eyes, and in other ways disfigured 'the human form divine,' in order to make fantastic playthings for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the n.o.ble-born. But history does not state that these deformities were inherited; certainly no race of monsters has resulted. The pits from small-pox are not inherited, though many successive generations must have been thus pitted by that disease before the beneficent discovery of the immortal Jenner. Children born with scars left by pustules have had small-pox in the womb, acquired through the system of the mother. On the other hand, the lower animals, cats, dogs, and horses, which have had their tails and legs artificially altered or injured, have produced offspring with the same condition of parts. A man who had his little finger on the right hand almost cut off, and which in consequence grew crooked, had sons with the same finger on the same hand similarly crooked. The eminent physiologist Dr.

Brown-Sequard mentions, that many young guinea-pigs inherited an epileptic tendency from parents which had been subjected to an operation at his hands resulting in the artificial production of fits; while a large number of guinea-pigs bred from animals which had not been operated on were not thus affected. At any rate, it cannot but be admitted that injuries and mutilations which cause disease, are occasionally inherited. But many cases of deformities existing at birth, as hare-lip, are not due to inheritance, although present in the father.

They arise from a change effected in the child while in the womb, through an impression made upon the mind of the mother, as will be shown hereafter.

LATE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF INHERITANCE.

Not only are diseases inherited which make their appearance at birth, but those which defer their exhibition until a certain period of life corresponding with that at which they showed themselves in the parents.

Thus in the Lambert family, before referred to, the porcupine excrescence on the skin began to grow in the father and sons at the same age, namely, about nine weeks after birth. In an extraordinary hairy family, which has been described, children were produced during three generations with hairy ears: in the father, the hair began to grow over his body at six years old; in his daughter somewhat earlier, namely, at one year; and in both generations the milk teeth appeared late in life, the permanent teeth being deficient. Greyness of hair at an unusually early age has been transmitted in some families. So, also, has the premature appearance of baldness.

HOW TO AVOID THE TENDENCY OF INHERITANCE.

These facts suggest the practical consideration, that in those diseases the predisposition to which alone is inherited, and which break out only after a lapse of time, it is often altogether possible to prevent the predisposition being developed into positive disease. Thus, for instance, the inherited tendency to _consumption_ remains asleep in the system until about the age of p.u.b.erty, or later. Therefore, by the use of a diet in which animal food forms a large portion, properly regulated, and systematic exercise in the open air, the practice of the long inhalations before recommended, warm, comfortable clothing, together with a residence, if practicable, during the changeable and inclement seasons of the year, in an equable climate, we can often entirely arrest the development of the disease. Prevention here is not only better than cure, but often all that is possible. Those in whom the disease has become active, must too often, like those who entered Dante's infernal regions, 'abandon hope.' Let our words of caution therefore be heeded.

When there is reason to believe that an individual possesses an inherent tendency to any disease, it is the duty of the medical adviser to study the const.i.tution of the patient thoroughly, and after such study to recommend those measures of prevention best suited to avert the threatened disorder. Above all, let the physician look closely to the child at the period of life when any grave const.i.tutional inheritable disease attacked the parent. This supervision should be carried into adult years, for there are instances on record of inherited diseases coming on at an advanced age, as in that of a grandfather, father, and son, who all became insane and committed suicide near their fiftieth year. Gout, apoplexy, insanity, chronic disease of the heart, epilepsy, consumption, asthma, and other diseases, are all more or less under the control of preventive measures. Some hereditary diseases, such as idiocy and cancer, we are impotent to prevent, in the present state of our knowledge.

A singular fact in connection with the transmission of disease is the readiness with which a whole generation is pa.s.sed over, the affection appearing in the next. A father or mother with consumption may in some instances have healthy children, but the grandchildren will die of the disease. Nature kindly favors one generation, but only at the expense of the next.

Some diseases require, in addition to the general means of prevention to be found in a strict observance of the laws of health, some special measures in order to effectually ward off their appearance. But the extent of this work will not admit of their discussion. Already, indeed, have we unduly, perhaps, extended our remarks upon inheritance. The interest and importance of the facts must be our justification.