Hereditary Disease
Many of Darwin's children suffered from similarly vague illnesses for much of their early lives, but it has been speculated that part of this may have been simply because he encouraged a household where sickness was a form of attention and socialization. Darwin himself—concerned with heredity—wondered if he had passed on his generally infirm condition to his children and was especially interested if his marriage to Emma Wedgwood, a cousin, was not perhaps also responsible (his concerns later in life with the effects of inbreeding were potentially motivated by this personal aspect as well).
Read more about this topic: Charles Darwin's Health
Famous quotes containing the words hereditary and/or disease:
“We bring [to government] no hereditary status or gift of infallibility and none follows us from this place.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“It is useless to check the vain dunce who has caught the mania of scribbling, whether prose or poetry, canzonets or criticisms,—let such a one go on till the disease exhausts itself. Opposition like water, thrown on burning oil, but increases the evil, because a person of weak judgment will seldom listen to reason, but become obstinate under reproof.”
—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale 1788–1879, U.S. novelist, poet and women’s magazine editor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 36-40 (December 1828)