On the transmission, from parent to offspring, of some forms of disease, and of morbid taints and tendencies / by James Whitehead.

  • James Whitehead
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: On the transmission, from parent to offspring, of some forms of disease, and of morbid taints and tendencies / by James Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/370 (page 5)
    VARIETIES OF RACES. 5 manner necessitated the enactment of that portion of the Levitical code which prohibits intermarriage within certain degrees of kindredj — a law which has been respected, with tolerable exactness, in most civilized countries, to the pre¬ sent day. Parents live again in their offspring/' ^ In physical aptitude and in mental power and tendency, in complexion and the shape of nature,^- children resemble their progeni¬ tors, as a general rule, in a remarkable manner. The sa¬ lient points of a strongly-marked character, whether derived heriditarily or existing as a connate variety, iinfolded and invigorated by favouring influences, are renewed and strengthened in succeeding generations, becoming at length the distinguishing attributes, difficult to be effaced in after time, of a numerous progeny. Those several divisions of the human family which have been classified as races, are distinguished by fundamental peculiarities of organization, which are broadly delineated, and which, to a certain degree, may be said to be permanent. But, in each of them, varieties are constantly springing up which in some instances appear to be referrible to dissimi¬ larity in the physical constitutions of the parents or their ancestors, or to influences of a moral nature ; in others it is more difficult to assign a cause. These diversities, however, known as temperaments, when not resulting from intermix¬ ture of different races, are, generally speaking, unaccompanied by any change of structure calculated to alter the primitive character of the tribe. In a body, to whatever caste belonging, well constituted, its organs and parts fully and proportionately developed, being in perfect health, and springing from a line of healthy ancestors, the various organs are found to be in the precise proportion best suited for the comfortable and uninterrupted Gregorii Cons]}. Med. Theor. 1. i. p. 16.