Hereditary Transmission and Predisposition. 253
cult to acquire absolutely accurate information from the data
obtainable, and the following statements must be regarded as
suggestive only. In almost every instance husbands and wives
were healthy at the time of marriage, and one or other con-
tracted the disease some years later. It would evidently not
be fair to compare the numbers of children born before, with
those born after, the appearance of the disease in either hus-
band or wife, and then draw deductions as to the influence of
leprosy on the reproductive power. For, firstly, in a large
number of cases one person forsakes the other as soon as the
disease becomes marked, and, secondly, by the time the disease
manifests itself the age of the patient is often so advanced
that the loss of reproductive power may be attributed to
organic and functional causes.
Two tables have been prepared (Tables XIV and XIVa)
to show how far leprosy may be said to influence the repro-
ductive power of the persons affected. Only such persons
have been chosen who cohabited for at least five years after
the appearance of the disease, and all patients over forty years
of age have been rigorously excluded. In this manner it may
be hoped to obtain a few suggestive facts.
In Table XIV such marriages where the husband only was
a leper have been grouped together, and it is found that of
296 couples 176, or 594 per cent., had no issue after the
appearance of the disease in the husband, while the progeny
of the 120 non-sterile couples amounted to only 249 indivi-
duals. That is, under the assumed conditions, the average
number of children to each couple amounts to less than one.
Again from Table XIVa it is seen that of 88 couples
where the wives only were affected, no children were born in
62 instances after the manifestation of the disease, the total
number of children born to the diseased mothers amounting to
49. Thus 704 per cent. of the women became sterile with
the appearance of the disease, and the average number of
children to each is considerably less than one.