_thirty-five thousand_ persons in the most wretched and helpless
condition of idiocy.

In view of the great number of idiots in the commonwealth, the
commissioners say, "it appeared to us certain that the existence of so
many idiots in every generation must be the consequence of some
violation of the _natural laws_; that where there was so much suffering
there must have been sin. We resolved, therefore, to seek for the
_sources_ of the evil, as well as to gauge the depth and extent of the
misery."

Some of the causes of idiocy are set forth in the report, two of which
are as follows: first, _the low condition of the physical organization_
of one or both parents, induced often by _intemperance_; second, _the
intermarriage of relatives_.

The report states that out of 420 cases of congenital idiocy which were
examined, some information was gained respecting the condition of the
progenitors of 359. Now in all these cases, save only four, it was found
that one or the other, or both, of the immediate progenitors of the
unfortunate sufferer had in some way widely departed from the normal
condition of health, and violated the natural laws. That is to say, one
or the other, or both of them, had been very unhealthy or scrofulous; or
hereditarily predisposed to affections of the brain, causing occasional
insanity; or had intermarried with blood relatives; or had been
intemperate; or had been guilty of sensual excesses which impair the
constitution.[50]

[50] The subject of hereditary transmission of diseased tendency is of
vast importance, but it is a difficult one to treat, because a squeamish
delicacy makes people avoid it; but if ever the race is to be relieved
of a tithe of the bodily ills which flesh is now heir to, it must be by
a clear understanding of, and a willing obedience to, the law which
makes the parents the blessing or the curse of the children; the givers
of strength, and vigor, and beauty, or the dispensers of debility, and
disease, and deformity. It is by the lever of enlightened parental love,
more than by any other power, that mankind is to be raised to the
highest attainable point of bodily perfection.--DR. S. G. HOWE.

INTEMPERANCE AND IDIOCY.--Out of the three hundred and fifty-nine
idiots, the condition of whose progenitors was ascertained, _ninety-nine
were the children of drunkards_. But this does not tell the whole story
by any means. By drunkard is meant a person who is