A pathological and philosophical essay on hereditary diseases, with an appendix on intermarriage and the inheritance of the tendency to moral depravities and crimes / by Julius Henry Steinau.

  • Steinau, Julius Henry.
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A pathological and philosophical essay on hereditary diseases, with an appendix on intermarriage and the inheritance of the tendency to moral depravities and crimes / by Julius Henry Steinau. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    19/72 (page 3)
    ledged by Fernelius3, Ludwig Mercatus', Boerhaave5, Stahl®, F. Hoffmann7, Tissot8, Haller9, Van Swieten10, Gaubius, Hartmann12, Reil13, C. Sprengel14, Portal15, Jos. Adams16, not to mention many others. Indeed, there are so many cases of hereditary diseases, so many facts to prove their existence have been handed down to us by the writers of past ages, and we ourselves with a little discernment are able to collect so many cases which tend to confirm this opinion, that we can only wonder how it was possible that professional men could ever deny this established truth. There were only two writers of note who do not subscribe to this opinion, viz. the celebrated French surgeon Louis, and Medicus; the first of whom, .on the occasion of the Academy of Sciences at Dijon having decreed a prize for the best Dissertation on this subject, endeavoured, in a Treatise published in 1748, to refute the opinion of the existence of hereditary diseases. But Portal justly remarks of this Treatise, that it was more ingeniously than judiciously written17. It cannot be denied, that many diseases have been considered heredi- tary which were by no means such, but which were only (3) De Morborum Causis. (4) L. c. (5) Aphor. de Cognoscend. et Curand. Morbis. (6) Diss. de Hereditaria Disposition ad varios Adfect. (7) Diss. de Adfect. Heredit. earumque Origine. (8) Maladies des Nerfs. (9) Physiologic Elementa. (10) Comment, in H. Boerhaave Aphor. (11) Institute Pathologic. (12) Pathologia generalis. (u) Ibid. (H) Institut. Pathologic generalis. (15) Consideration sur la Nature et le Traitement des Malades de Eamille, and des Maladies Hereditaires. Par A.Portal. Troisieme edition, Paris,] 814. (16) A Philosophical Dissertation on the Hereditary Peculiarities of the Human Constitution, &c. (n) “ Mais ce qu'il a dit contre cette opinion est plus ingenieux, que fonde en raison.” Portal, 1. c.