Drunkenness, lust, rage, fear, mental anxiety or incompatibility, “if admitted to participation in the act of impregnation will each, in turn or in combination, often set the seal of their presence in the shape of idiocy, imbecility, eccentricity, or absolute insanity.”

Diogenes reproached a half-witted, cracked-brained unfortunate with this remark, “Surely, young man, thy father begat thee when he was drunk.”

[Nervous diseases 311]

Burton in his anatomy of melancholy states that:  “If a drunken man begets a child it will never likely have a good brain,” Michelet predicts:  “Woe unto the children of darkness, the sons of drunkenness who were, nine months before their birth, an outrage on their mothers.”

Children of drunkards are often “sad and hideous burlesques upon normal humanity.”  Business worry may cause unsoundness in the offspring generated under such conditions.

One father had two sons grow up strong and vigorous, mentally and physically, while a third son was weak, irresolute, fretful, suspicious and half demented.  The father confessed to his physician that on account of business troubles he was half crazy and during this time the wife became pregnant and this half-crazy son was born and the father states that “he inherits just the state of mind I was then in.”  Many such cases could be mentioned.  “A sound body and a cheerful mind can only be produced from healthy stock.”  Mental peculiarities are produced by unpleasant influences brought to bear upon the pregnant mother.  The story is told of King James the Sixth of Scotland, that he was constitutionally timid and showed great terror at a drawn sword.  His father was murdered in his mother’s presence while she was pregnant.  Children born under the influence of fear may be troubled with apprehensions of impending calamity, so intense that they may become insane at last.  An instance is given of “an insane man who always manifested the greatest fear of being killed and constantly implored those around him not to hurt him.”  His mother lived with her drunken husband who often threatened to kill her with a knife.

Other Causes of Insanity.  Imperfect Nutrition.—­Whatever tends to weaken the brain or exhaust the central forces of life must favor the growth of insanity.  The brain is not properly nourished.

Blows and Falls upon the Head.—­Sometimes such injuries are forgotten, but they result infrequently in stealthily developed, but none the less dangerous, conditions, which may result in the derangement of all mental faculties.  A child should not be struck on the head.  Teachers or parents should not box a child’s ears.  One author says such a person “is guilty of slow murder of innocents.”

Fright is Another Cause.—­Punishing a child by locking it in a dark room or by “stories of greedy bears or grinning ghosts produces, oftentimes, a mental shock that makes a child wretched in early life, and drives him into insanity at a later date.”  Overtaxing the undeveloped physical powers is another cause.