Degeneracy: Its Causes, Signs and Results

by Eugene S. Talbot

Sunstroke produces the ordinary phenomena of nervous exhaustion, but the patient becomes more irritable, suspicious, and extremely proud. As these patients are not recognised for a long times as insane they often marry and produce degenerates. Kiernan reports a case in which father and mother (both of healthy stock) were overcome by the heat during one of the processions of the American Centenaries. The children born before the sunstroke were healthy, but there had been no children for five years previously. A year subsequent to the sunstroke (which was followed by a change in character in both parents) the woman had triplets, one of which died soon after birth from convulsions. The second of the triplets, a girl, became epileptic at 2, a prostitute at 16, and chronically insane at 20. The third triplet became a puberty lunatic at 16. Of three children subsequently born, two are epileptics and one is a moral imbecile who manifests premonitory evidences of paranoia. Sunstroke, however, underlies many cases of alcoholism. Not a few of the instances of degeneration charged to alcoholism are, in reality, due to the nervous condition arising from the exhaustion produced by sunstroke. To this factor was in no small degree due the extremely large infant mortality of the English in India of the first half of the present century. While temperature plays a part in producing degeneracy in the offspring through its production of systemic disorder in the ancestor, it is usually associated with other factors which aid or predispose to its effects. It also predisposes to the greater action of other causes. Very frequently the sun-struck person, rendered incapable of continued labour by irritability, becomes a tramp or a pauper, either of which conditions tends to accelerate the degenerative process and furthermore to increase the possible chances of passing down the effect through heredity by the ease with which illicit relationships are contracted. The least intelligent of the prostitute class, or rather, of that class of nymphomaniacs who have not fully entered upon a prostitute career, are driven into the workhouse or almshouse, where they often remain for years, or depart at intervals, leaving their offspring to be reared at public expense. The number of such children born yearly in almshouses is at least ten thousand in the United States.[175] An enormous proportion of these die in infancy but sufficient survive to form a potent source of degenerates.

The influence of overheating further predisposes to the attack of microbes even in the temperate climates, and to constitutional defects resultant on these.

A factor of degeneracy as related to soil on which much stress has been laid, is that of goitre. This has been carefully studied by Munson[176] among the Indians on the reservation in the United States. The number was 77,173, of whom 2·36 per cent. had goitre. As regards geographic distribution the disease is more prevalent in the southern part of Montana. Goitre was reported as practically unknown among the white settlers living about the reservations where goitre was prevalent among the Indians. Fully 80 per cent. of the cases occur in Indian women, the disease being not only much less frequent, but also less decided and less extensive in the male. The average age of onset of the disease was from 12 to 14 years. There are many instances illustrating the apparent heredity of goitre. Several consecutive generations show its development. Only one case is reported in which goitre was associated with cretinism. Goitre among Indians cannot be traced to high altitudes, climate or water containing excess of calcium magnesium salts. The disease is apparently due to insanitary surroundings, depressing constitutional conditions, improper and excessively nitrogenous diet. This condition of things among the Indians bears an important relation to the facts pointed out by C. K. Clarke,[177] of Kingston, Ontario, who found in the Canadian asylums a large number of goitrous patients and one goitrous attendant. The goitrous patients, who were of long residence, had come from all parts of the dominion. The size of the goitre was in proportion to the length of the residence. It is possible that local influence may have much to do with the disease, though it is evident that the insane are much more liable to it than normal persons. W. B. Fletcher, of Indianapolis, has observed similar frequency as to goitre among the insane there, especially among the foreigners and their immediate descendants. Cretinism, according to Morel, was degeneracy due to a special action which a toxic principle exercises on a cerebro-spinal system, whether by the air that is breathed or by the substances ingested in the economy, and which, above all, appears to have some relation to a soil where predominates the magnesian limestone. That the last factor has some influence is shown by the fact that goitrous enlargements are encountered in medical practice in Chicago much more frequently than among the corresponding classes in the East. The water in Chicago contains magnesium-lime salts, whether it be derived from the lake or from the artesian well. The fact, however, that the Indians and the insane exhibit a tendency to goitre indicates that behind the influence of the soil or of diet lies a neuropathic constitution, whether this be inherited or acquired. Cretinism is much more frequent in the United States than was apparent ere the discovery of the value of the thyroid glands in treatment. Under the stimulus of investigation for cases in which to try this treatment, medical literature from all parts of the United States has been filled with reports of authenticated cases. Among these are scions of families which have been American for more than three generations and which may, therefore, be considered as products of an American environment. The same condition of things has occurred in both Great Britain and on the European continent in districts which, prior to 1890, were supposed to be free from cretinism. This illustrates the results of stimulus given investigation in biology rather than increase of the disorder.

The influence of spoiled maize in producing the mixed skin, nervous and mental disorder known as pellagra in the Italians, would seem, from the results of the researches of Billod,[178] to be chiefly due to the conjoined effects of unhygienic surroundings, the offspring of climate and soil. The fungus on maize (ustilago), like the fungus on rye (ergot), produces rather long-lasting neurosis of an epileptic character, susceptible to transmission to the offspring of women poisoned by these fungi. The Italian disease, pellagra, manifests the features one would expect from an improper food taken under unhygienic conditions. While this is undoubtedly exaggerated by the habits of the peasantry in Italy, still in a lesser degree like effects of food are observable in other races.

The influence of the potato diet in degenerating the Irish Celt in comparison with the Scottish Celt under the same conditions, is difficult at present to determine for lack of data. Certainly the descendants of this class of Irish Celts rapidly regain a handsome, healthy status under mixed American diet, even though the hygienic surroundings in the great cities be not the best. He who has to treat a class of neurasthenics in whom starch digestion is impaired finds that a diet of potatoes (undoubtedly through the auto-intoxication it produces) will increase certain nervous symptoms, and hence the tendency to transmission to the next generation.

In the families of the pioneers in the United States, as well as the families of farmers in secluded valleys in Norway, Switzerland, and elsewhere, the influence of monotony of diet, aggravated by monotony of surroundings, has undoubtedly produced a large amount of degeneracy. Ray Brigham of New York, Awl of Ohio, and Patterson of Illinois have shown that there is an unusual frequency of insanity in farmers’ wives which is undoubtedly traceable to these conditions. Kiernan, of Chicago, has reported a case fairly typical of those earlier described by the American alienists just cited. The first generation was a woman of New England stock, of tireless energy, to whom work was a pleasure and rest an abhorrence, and who lived on a farm miles from the town. She did all her own work and brought up a large family, chiefly on maize, potatoes, and bread, pork being the meat diet. At 50 this woman removed with her husband, who had grown wealthy, to a small country town. Here she conducted the entire work of the household without a servant. At 52 she broke down with neurasthenia, which rapidly passed into periodical gloomy spells, in one of which she committed suicide. Her youngest daughter, who had an asymmetrical face, has the periodical gloomy tendency of the mother, alternating with periods of restlessness, which evince themselves in doing unnecessarily the work of the servants and other labours inconsistent with her husband’s social status. She had at times suicidal and homicidal impulses. She has three children; one exhibits no special abnormality; the eldest, a boy of eleven, dislikes to play with boys because they are rough, and plays with girls, to whom he is at times mischievously cruel. He likes to sew and make doll’s clothing and purchase dolls, while there are other indications of sexual abnormality. The youngest, a girl, has frequent attacks of epileptic-like fury, although between these she is kind-hearted, good-humoured, and very affectionate. In dealing with the question of soil, the factors predisposing to the attacks of the parasite of malaria have to be taken into consideration; certainly the inhabitants of certain malarial districts exhibit all the characteristics of degenerates.

The influence of nutrition in producing nervous states likely to be transmitted as degeneracy in the offspring are excellently illustrated in the nervous disorders due to improper nutrition during youth. This may, as W. S. Christopher[179] of Chicago has shown, produce all possible neuroses to which the organism may be liable. Such neuroses relate to—

A. Psychic faculties.
B. Sensation.
1. Anæsthesia.
2. Hyperæsthesia.
3. Hyperalgia (increased pain sense).

C. Heat production.
1. Elevation of temperature.
2. Depression of temperature.
D. Muscular tissues.
1. Hypertrophy.
2. Atrophy.
3. Paralysis.
4. Convulsions.
E. Skeletal muscles.
1. General convulsions.
2. Chorea.
3. Tetany (toe and finger jerks).
F. Pharynx.
1. Dyspnœa (difficult breathing).
G. Œsophagus.
1. Dysphagia (difficult swallowing).
H. Stomach.
1. Vomiting.
2. Merycism (rumination).
I. Intestines.
1. Increased peristalsis (movement of bowel).
2. Decreased peristalsis.
J. Larynx.
1. Dyspnœa.
2. Laryngismus stridulus (croup spasm).
3. Chorea.
K. Bronchi.
1. Asthma.
2. Bronchorrhœa (excessive secretion).
L. Bladder.
1. Incontinence.
2. Retention.
M. Urethra.
1. Spasmodic stricture.
N. Uterus.
1. Neuralgias.
2. Spasms.
O. Vagina.
1. Vaginismus (painful spasm).

P. Heart.
1. Chorea.
2. Disturbance of rate.
3. Disturbance of rhythm.
Q. Secretory organs.
1. Decrease of secretion.
2. Modification of composition of secretion.
R. Absorptive organs.
S. Elaborative organs.
T. Respiratory organs. Other than those cited.
U. Excretory organs.
V. Reproductory organs.

Those of the genital organs only exist in precocious childhood, while still others occur, some occasionally, some very frequently.

Of the psychic neuroses, perhaps the commonest are the night terrors, which occur in ill-nourished children with great frequency. Hyperesthesia (or increased sensitiveness) is a starvation neurosis occurring especially in unrecognised scurvy. Variations of temperature, both increased and subnormal, occur in children suffering from evident in-nutrition.