could be given in support of this proposition. The illustrious Hunter believed
in it; and Piorry (14/36. 'L'Hered. dans les Maladies' 1840 page 135. For
Hunter see Harlan 'Med. Researches' page 530.) cautions the physician to look
closely to the child at the period when any grave inheritable disease attacked
the parent. Dr. Prosper Lucas (14/37. 'L'Hered. Nat.' tome 2 page 850.), after
collecting facts from every source, asserts that affections of all kinds,
though not related to any particular period of life, tend to reappear in the
offspring at whatever period of life they first appeared in the progenitor.

As the subject is important, it may be well to give a few instances, simply as
illustrations, not as proof; for proof, recourse must be had to the
authorities above quoted. Some of the following cases have been selected for
the sake of showing that, when a slight departure from the rule occurs, the
child is affected somewhat earlier in life than the parent. In the family of
Le Compte blindness was inherited through three generations, and no less than
twenty-seven children and grandchildren were all affected at about the same
age; their blindness in general began to advance about the fifteenth or
sixteenth year, and ended in total deprivation of sight at the age of about
twenty-two. (14/38. Sedgwick 'Brit. and For. Med.-Chirurg. Review' April 1861
page 485. In some accounts the number of children and grandchildren is given
as 37; but this seems to be an error judging from the paper first published in
the 'Baltimore Med. and Phys. Reg.' 1809 of which Mr. Sedgwick has been so
kind as to send me a copy.) In another case a father and his four children all
became blind at twenty-one years old; in another, a grandmother grew blind at
thirty-five, her daughter at nineteen, and three grandchildren at the ages of
thirteen and eleven. (14/39. Prosper Lucas 'Hered. Nat.' tome 1 page 400.) So
with deafness, two brothers, their father and paternal grandfather, all became
deaf at the age of forty. (14/40. Sedgwick ibid July 1861 page 202.)

Esquirol gives several striking instances of insanity coming on at the same