HEREDITARY SCROFULA

Waikato Times, Volume 2507, Issue XXXI, 4 August 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

HEREDITARY SCROFULA

It is recalled now that Bismarck, who was already the chief man in Prussia in ISOB, (■trenuously opposed the marriago of the Crown Prince with the English Princess, saying that he was against any " blood alliance with thofe scrofulous Guelphi'." The existing situation is a strange retributive comment on that utterance. Scrofula, or that worse allied disease with which so many royal strains of blood are contaminated, lays a heavy band on the Hobenzollerns at San Remo " . anil Berlin alike ; but the taint has not come from England. A fact which has been privately known here for some - months may now properly be mentioned. The present aged Empress of Germany, mother of the Crown Prince, has been a victim to hereditary sorofula, or a cognato malady, for many years. She got it from her mother, Mary Paulowna, who was a daughter of the ctaxy Paul, one of tlie nxst thoroughly diseased men of his generation. All of Paul's daughters transmitted the taint to their descendants. One of them Anne Paulowna, was mother of the present King of Holland, and the recent death of both his tons and the extinction of his male line are attributed to thi«. In the male Romanoff line the same malady caused the death of the Czarowitz, who was the elder brother of the present Czar, mid now renders itdoul tful if the prefect youthful Czarowitz will ever reach manhood. In the Hohenzollern case, not only is the Crown Prince suffering from tills hereditary taint, but his son William, who in a few wooks or months will be Emperor, is hereditarily deaf, and > was born with a mere (-hapless ball of ; flesh where the hand ought to be. The Otown Piince's only sister is the Grand IJuches.s of Baden, and of Iter two sons one died last month and the other is ill at Cannes and not expected to recover, both ': from scrofulous developments. The -i malady can, in truth,, be tisced all ''_ through the Almanack Gotha among V dependents of the Czar Paul. The *,_ disease onlv showed its-elf in the Empress -j Augusta'when she had advanced ip life. ,'; since when she has worn high dresses, and ■'■', frequently was not visible to the public ■?, for months at a time.—Berlin cable to .j N.Y Times. i