Seven ambitious brothers and how they bred a race of kings / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D.

Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seven ambitious brothers and how they bred a race of kings / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ta es ily and result disastrously. But, contrariwise, this same knowledge points the way to the elimination of such a defective strain. Just as Mr. Burbank could not fix the abnor- mal quality of his wild geranium leaf without in- breeding, so the defective quality in the human subject is not likely to be fixed unless a person having the defect mates with another having a similar defect. : And this gives us a clew to a full understand- ing of the question of cousin marriage, regarding which there has been a good deal of difference of opinion among students of heredity in the past. In the light of the new knowledge it would appear that there is no necessary danger in such unions provided there is no defective strain in the fam- ily. On the contrary, a desirable quality, even genius itself, may be thus accentuated, as we saw illustrated in the case of the family of the seven brothers. If, however, a defective strain exists, the mar- riage of cousins brings together the two defective elements in precisely the way best suited to make them tangible in the offspring. The practical lesson is that if there is a strain of mental defect or of susceptibility to tubercu- losis—to name only two important conditions— [25]
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