of the intoxication of the
father or mother at the time of the intercourse resulting in conception.
Such cases are not due to hereditary transmission, for that cannot be
hereditary which has been possessed by neither the parents nor any other
relatives.

In considering the effects of inheritance, we will first pass in review
those connected with the physical constitution. These are exceedingly
common and universally known. Fortunately, not merely are evil qualities
inherited, but beauty, health, vigor, and longevity also.

BEAUTY.

Good looks are characteristic of certain families. Alcibiades, the
handsomest among the Grecians of his time, descended from ancestors
remarkable for their beauty. So well and long has the desirable
influence of inheritance in this respect been recognised, that there
existed in Crete an ancient law which ordained that each year the most
beautiful among the young men and women should be chosen and forced to
marry, in order to perpetuate the type of their beauty. Irregularities
of feature are transmitted from parent to child through many
generations. The aquiline nose has existed some centuries, and is yet
hereditary in the Bourbon family. The hereditary under-lip of the House
of Hapsburg is another example. When the poet Savage speaks of

'The tenth transmitter of a foolish face,'

he scarcely exaggerates what is often seen in families where some
strongly-marked feature or expression is long predominant or reappears
in successive generations.

NECK AND LIMBS.

The form and length of the neck and limbs are frequently hereditary, as
is also the height of the body. The union of two tall persons engenders
tall children. The father of Frederick the Great secured for himself a
regiment of men of gigantic stature, by permitting the marriage of his
guards only with women of similar height. A tendency to obesity often
appears in generation after generation of a family. Yet such cases are
within the reach of medical art.

COMPLEXION.

Even the complexion is not exempt from this influence. Blondes
ordinarily procreate blondes, and dark parents have dark-skinned
children. An union in marriage of fair and dark complexions results in
an intermediate shade in the offspring. Not always, however; for it has
been asserted that the complexion chiefly follows that of the father.
The offspring of a black father and a white mother is much darker than
the progeny of a white father and a dark mo