Claudius F. Mayer: From Plato to Pope Paul / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 17. (Budapest, 1989)

346 The term "hereditary" was distinguished from "accidental". Cf. De MEARA, 1. c. cap. 1.— Robert BURTON (1577-1640): Anatomy of Melancholy, describes melancholy (^mental disease in general), and devotes a chapter to "parents as cause by propagation" (Part 1, sect 2, mem. 1, subsect. 6.), concluding that melancholy is a hereditary disease.

—Cf. also BOERHAAVE

: Aphorismi, and A. HALLER Physiologiae elementa, who also list a large number of familial and hereditary diseases. 347 Hereditary sex-linked alopecia; DANZ (1792): Archiv für Geburtshilfe

, 4: 634; q. by SEDGWICK, 1863. 348 Somnabulism in three brothers; HORSTIUS (1593): De natura

, etc., Lpz. 349 Melancholy; L. ŁEMŅ ŲS (1561), PARACELSUS, BURTON, G. CARDANO. 350 Insanity; Ludwig VIVES xvi. ct.); q. by J. MAYER (1930): Eugenics in the Roman Catholic literature. Eugenics, 3: No. 2, 43. 351 Deafness; J. SCHEŅCK (1530-1598): Observ. med. rar. 2. vol. Frankf., 1600, Lib. I. No. 354. 352 Polydactyly in four generations of a Berlin family. P. L. M. De MAUPERTUIS (1698-1759); he calculatated its frequency at 1:20,000. He had also a hypothesis of generation by heredity similar to DARWIN's pangenesis. Cf. OSBORN, 1. c., 169. 353 Color blindness through 3 generations; J. SCOTT (1777): Philos. Tr. R. Soc., Lond., describes his own family in a letter. 354 E. g., Heinrich Paul OPPERMANN (1753)'s doctor dissertation in Halle on the question: "Should children be excluded from the morbid heredity of the parents." A trend (=potentia) can be prevented, but deformities ( =vitia conformationis) cannot be. He also gave a list of many diseases considered hereditary at his time.

—Cf. also Nicolas COSNIER (1718, Paris): An morbus hereditarily est sanabilis? His answer is, yes. 355 This belief is found in scientific and popular writings (e. g. SHAKESPEARE'S Henry VI. and his Midsummer night's Dream; PARACELSUS; BACON, etc.).—in the xvi. ct. J. J. WICK (1522-1588), Protestant preacher, collected documents of cultural interest including single socalled fugitive sheets describing abnormities or "wonder births". Cf. SONDEREGGER, A. (1927): Missgeburten, etc., Zürich.

—Viable monsters were kept in houses of eminent peoples. Philip IV. specialized in dwarfs. A Roman Cardinal kept a parasitic thoracopagus. Even Montezuma in Mexico had a "museal" collection of human monsters, dwarfs (Cf. PRESCOTT, 1. c., 320). 356 Jean FERNEŁ: De causis morborum, I: 11: "Quam praeclare humano generi consultum Viđereųr, si soli parentes bene habiti atque sani liberis operam darent." ("It is the greatest part of felicity to be well born, and it were happy for human kind if only such parents as are sound of body and mind should be suffered to marry.") 357 DE MEARA, 1. c., cap. 10: ".. .prudenter agere censendi sunt, qui conjuges corpore recte valentes, virtutibusque turn suis turn majorum insignes, potius quam divitiis abundantes, liberis suis providere stagunt." 358 HŲARTE, J. (1580): Examen de los ingeniös, Cap. XV. 359 ZACCHIAS, P. (1621): Quaestiones medico-legales, vol. 1, Lib. 2, Tit. 1, quest, vii, and viii. He discusses the legal status of idiots, backward children, and congenitally deaf. 360 Cf. also çRAŅF ELD, P. F. (1970): Bull. N. York Acad. Med., 46: No. 1, 3. 361 Already in MERCADO: De morbid her ed., v. 2, 681.: "Parentes duo ex eadem familia descendentes nunquam connubio jungi đeben ." 362 BURTON, 1. c., Pt. I, sec. 2, mem, subsect. 6: "An husbandman will sow none but the best and choicest seed upon his land, he will not rear a bull or an horse, except he be right shapen in all parts, or permit him to cover a mare, except he be well assured of his breed

; we make choice of the best rams for our sheep, rear the neatest kine, and keep the best dogs, quanto id diligentius in procreandisliberisobservandum!"

—J. H. G. von JUSTI (f 1771): Grundsätze der PoliceÿWissenschaft (1756), advocated that people with inherited diseases, or those incapable of procreation, should not be allowed to marry. 363 Frederick Wilhelm I. had the mania for giant soldiers, and he paid thousands of dollars for the procurement of 7-feet recruits for grenadiers. He allowed his agents to kidnap such tall youth, and he exchanged his skilled workers for Russian giants of Peter the Great. 364 PARACELSUS: Concerning the Nature of Things, Bk. 1.—He mentions that if a man has con68