DEDUCTIONS AS TO HEREDITARY PREDISPOSITION. 19 the unquestionable authority of Dr. Bostock, exactly resembled the original description in the Philosophical Transactions and the plates of Tilesius. The case is known as that of the Porcupine Family. But this instance is only singular from the extraordinary character and degree of the diseased state. Not only the colour, but other structural and functional peculiarities of the skin, are likewise found to be derived from one or other of the parents; and a tendency to scurfiness, to eruptive conditions, to a dry or a very freely-acting skin, to a skin with a glistening and stretched look, or one that is wrinkled even in early life, are sufficiently noticeable among the physical peculiarities handed down from parent to child. Dr. Pritchard gives an amusing instance, in his Researches into the Physical History of Man, of the transmissibility of a peculiarity of feature from generation to generation. He says, "Dr. Gregory related to his numerous students, in order to convince them of the resemblance between children and parents, both with respect to external and internal structure, that, having been once called to a distant part of Scotland to visit a rich nobleman, he discovered in the configuration of his nose an exact resemblance to that of the Grand Chancellor of Scotland in the reign of Charles I., as represented in his portraits. On taking a walk through the village after dinner, the doctor recognised the same nose in several individuals among the country people; and the nobleman's steward, who accompanied him, informed him that all the persons he had seen were descended from the illegitimate children of the Grand Chancellor." The thick lip of the Imperial Family of Austria is said to have been derived from the marriage of the Emperor Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy, and to be still visible in the family after the lapse of three centuries. The eye of our own royal stock of the Stuarts,-and it might be safely added, the prevailing features of their characters, mental as well as bodily,-affords another remarkable instance of the transmissibility of peculiarities from generation to generation. "In this way," says Dr. Gregory, in his " Conspectus Medicinæ Theoretica"-I have ventured to translate the passage -"parents often live after death in their offspring. Of a certainty, children are like their parents, not only as to features and the form of their bodies, but as to the disposition, as to the virtues and vices, of their minds. The imperious Claudian family long flourished in Rome; a family which produced the tearless Tiberius, the most fearful of tyrants; a family which gave birth to the inhuman Caligula, and to Claudius, and, after a lapse of six hundred years, to Nero." And Horace says, and says truly,— "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis : Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum Progenerant aquila columbam." CARMINUM, Lib. iv., Od. 4. The degree to which the peculiarities are transmissible to the offspring, must be largely influenced by the amount of antagonism to them that may be DEDUCTIONS AS TO HEREDITARY PREDISPOSITION. 21 presented by those of the other parent. Hence may arise some part of the admitted great importance of avoiding successive intermarriages among the members of the same family; adding, as this does, to the risk of the prevailing peculiarity becoming excessive, and leading to disease. The value of judicious intermarriages with unconnected families, in increasing the probable duration of families, their chances of healthiness and of distinction, can hardly be exaggerated. If all such care has been neglected, when care had been practicable, or where strong constitutional peculiarities had rendered care peculiarly necessary, the development of organic defects, of debile conditions, of disease, in the offspring, either congenital, or arising afterwards from comparatively unimportant exciting causes,-occurs too often, to fail in proving the reality and importance of hereditary predisposition. And scrofula, in all its forms, may often be shown to be the direct result of disobedience to the organic laws, by intermarriages among the members of the same family; or the infraction of these laws may equally lead to hereditary predisposition in the offspring, when it consists in the intemperance and debauchery of one or more generations, or where the circumstances of the parents' lives have been characterised by poverty, insufficient food, want of cleanliness, deficient exercise, or (its apparent opposite) extreme toil, or defective ventilation of the house, or miasmatous or other depressing influences of the locality, in which they have spent their lives. And mania, and its minor type, epilepsy, 2 -and gout, rheumatism, &c.,-serve to swell the catalogue of diseases, to which hereditary bias may give the tendency; a tendency easily acted upon, and readily converted into disease. The dwarfed condition of the existing aristocracy in one of the continental nations, has been often referred to, as one of the strongest illustrations of transmissible constitutional peculiarity, and the disadvantage of repeated intermarriages; and the strong national characters stamped on the Celt, the Saxon, the Gaul, the Greek, the Arab, the Tartar, and many et-ceteras of the families of the earth,-characters including the average height, the form of the features, the relative development of the cerebral, animal, and motor organs, characters including the prevailing bias of the mind, and distinguishing peculiarities of creative effort,-are magnificent examples of the same great fact. Who can doubt the strong distinguishing characters of the Saxon race, who regards the position of England in the present day, with her steady rise among the nations of the world, and her people giving, from her small island-home, laws, influence, civilisation, enterprise, intellect, and Christianity, to a large share of the habitable globe? The direct and practical bearings of these facts, and their importance to the existing and future races of mankind, may prove excuse enough for the foregoing observations on a subject, less immediately, as it might seem, relevant to the consideration of muscular exercise. But exercise, by strengthening the generalsy stem, thus comes to act, in an important THE EXERCISE OF CHILDREN. 23 degree, not only upon the health of the body, and the probable expectation of life of the individual, but on the chances of a healthy and well-developed offspring. How important an element of what is called physical education, this view of the subject shows muscular exercise to be, is evident; how peculiarly important muscular exercise may be in the case of girls, is a reasonable inference! This fact can hardly be too often or too strongly impressed on the minds of parents and teachers. It is not enough-it does not constitute the whole of their duty to the young and growing populationthat they be carefully, steadily, and efficiently provided with food and clothing, and the comforts of life; it is not enough, that they have provided for them, the means of religious, moral, and intellectual enlightenment and progress,-and that these great pabula mentis are supplied in quantity and kind, suitable to the varying age and mental strength and growing capabilities; it is not enough, unless the means have been afforded of using the limbs and the trunk of the body extensively and sufficiently in muscular exercise, and this done in such a way, as to secure the apportioning of such exercise, in degree and character, to the peculiarities and wants of the economy,-extensively using the different muscles, and calling them into a degree of exercise that is sufficiently energetic. Healthy manhood and womanhood cannot result from a childhood, that has not been permitted and encouraged to the exercise of the muscles, during at least one or two hours of every |