The question of heredity has received considerable attention during recent years. As a result, many of our pet theories have undergone a decided change. Many of the diseases which formerly were thought to be acquired through inheritance we now know to be contracted through lack of care or through association. The only inheritance is possibly a tendency to the disease or a decrease in the power of resistance. It is a law of pathology that the diseases of parents who suffer from certain serious chronic maladies create in the offspring a condition of defective life shown in malformations or in altered nutrition. The hereditary influence of most diseases is shown in the transmission to the child of a defective body shown by feebleness or a diminished power of resisting disease.
In tuberculosis and other diseases that once were considered hereditary, this influence is shown probably only in a predisposition to the disease which under favorable circumstances finds an easy condition of growth. The child does not actually inherit the disease and if placed in favorable surroundings will outgrow the tendency, will overcome the feeble vitality. But such a child if allowed to remain with its parent, to breathe the germs of disease cast off by the parent, readily contracts the disease. For the sake of the child it must be separated from its tubercular parent. It must be given fresh air and nourishing food.
There is one disease, though, that seems to be truly inherited: the worst of the black plagues, syphilis. This may be inherited from either parent, it frequently is inherited from the father even though the mother does not contract the disease. This inheritance seems to manifest itself chiefly in a disordered nutrition. Even during the first few months of development, this may be so effective as to destroy life. You remember, I mentioned this when I talked about abortions. If life is not destroyed, the nutritional processes may be so affected that the pregnancy will result in the birth of a defective child. These children, perhaps fortunately, usually die during the first few months of their lives. Seldom do they live to maturity. Many children who seem to have escaped this inherited trait really have not done so, but their inheritance is not recognized. Some people with defective generative organs owe this to a diseased parent. Others suffering from a chronic skin disorder, and many afflicted with epilepsy or some brain malformation could trace their inheritance to the same source. This disease seems truly to be an instance of "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."
There is no doubt that the general health of the child is affected by the health of the mother especially during the period when the child is nourished from the mother's blood. Attention to such matters as diet, sleep and exercise certainly has a great influence upon the constitution of the unborn child. The best heritage a mother can give her child is a strong constitution, and in order to do this she must make motherhood a science.
CHAPTER XI
CHILDLESS HOMES AND REAL HOMES—CAUSES OF STERILITY
Whatever may be the motive that causes men and women to enter into matrimony, the social reason is the perpetuation of the human race. Herbert Spencer says, "The welfare of the family underlies the welfare of society." Therefore those who marry for convenience or with the avowed intention of not assuming the obligations of parenthood have not the welfare of the human race at heart and are a menace to society in its highest form.
Childless homes are not the happy homes, anyhow! Their occupants usually are dissatisfied; the women are nervous, irritable and unhappy; the men are seeking happiness elsewhere. The homes childless from choice should receive our condemnation, but the homes childless from necessity should receive our commiseration. The latter are much more prevalent than many of our race suicide agitators would admit. These are too prone to blame the woman for what is not her choice. We hear so much about the higher education of women promoting race suicide. A recent investigation carried on by a well-known magazine has proven that such is not the case. The college girls and the professional women desire children much more than do the factory girls. But these college girls realize that quality is as necessary as quantity. They do not desire to bring into the world weak, puny offspring. These college girls are beginning to make motherhood a science. What the results will be we can only anticipate.