ns. of Am. Med. Asso._, vol. xi,
1858, pp. 420-425.]

The comparatively low averages of the consanguineous marriages from
Bemiss may easily be accounted for by the fact that the cases were
highly selected so that nearly one-third of the children were in some
way defective, and the parents in many cases were far below the
average in vitality. The "more distantly related" are in a still
lesser degree representative of the class, since out of a greater
possibility of choice a smaller number were chosen. The
"non-consanguineous" were supposed to be near the average in vitality
and fertility.

In Norway, according to Uchermann, the consanguineous and the
non-consanguineous marriages are equally fertile, averaging 6.1
children per marriage;[49] and in a Black Forest village Tenckhoff
found an average of 4.6 children to each consanguineous marriage as
against 3.5 to each non-consanguineous marriage.[50] In regard to the
youthful death-rate among the offspring of consanguineous marriages,
comparison with non-related marriages is more feasible. I have counted
in each case all those children who are known to have died under the
age of twenty. This age was taken for the sake of convenience, and to
include all children indefinitely specified as having "died young."
The results are given in Table XIX:

TABLE XIX.
-------------------------------------------------
Parentage. | No. of |No. dying |
(Genealogies.) |Children.|under 20. |Per cent.
-------------------------------------------------
First cousins | 672 | 113 | 16.7
Other cousins | 1417 | 211 | 14.9
Ch. of 1st cousins| 825 | 103 | 12.5
Non-consanguineous| 3184 | 370 | 11.6
-------------------------------------------------
(Correspondence.)
-------------------------------------------------
First cousins | 759 | 88 | 11.6
Other marriages | 829 | 71 | 8.6
-------------------------------------------------

[Footnote 49: Feer, _Der Einfluss der Blutsverwandschaft der Eltern
auf die Kinder,_ p. 12, _note_.]

[Footnote 50: Ibid.]

If the figures in Table XIX are to be accepted at their face value,
and there seems to be no good reason for not doing so in the
genealogical cases at least, the youthful death-rate among the
offspring of consanguineous marriages far exceeds the average. The
average in the correspondence cases is undoubtedly too low, as many
corresponden