ANCIENT IRISH MEDICINE
more sophisticated dietary customs of the modern
time.
The medieval and modern Irish undoubtedly owed
not a little of their excellent constitution and
their remarkable avoidance of inherited defects
of both mind and body to their thoroughgoing
submission to the practice of the Church in so far
as concerns consanguineous marriages. 1he Church
has always been very strict about the marriage of
near relatives, but also Church laws have empha-
sized the desirability of the avoidance of consan-
guineous marriages even to the fourth degree. The
Irish followed this precept very closely as a rule
though there were many temptations to break it for
there is a very definite clannishness among the Irish.
Even in this country the older people were rather
disturbed if a young man married a young Irish
women from another part of the country than that
from which his own family had come. There was a
distinct tendency among them to limit marriages to
people from the same county or at least to people
from the same province. Under these circumstances
it 1s easy to understand that there was constant
danger of intermarriage within the forbidden de-
grees. Irish obedience to the Church regulations
prevented this to the greatest possible extent.
It used to be thought that the main reason for
the Church's prohibition of consanguineous mar-
riages even to the fourth degree was the prevention
of the moral dangers that are more or less inevitable
since cousins associate rather intimately. Immoral-
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