plain many puzzling phenomena. Thus M. Danney made experiments during ten years with rabbits, a hundred couples being selected by him with a view to the creation of peculiarities. By always choosing the parents "d'après des circonstances individuelles fixes et toujours les mêmes dans certaines lignées," he succeeded in obtaining a number of malformations according to his preconceived plan. And such experiments have been repeated on dogs, pigeons, and poultry with like success. It is on this fact of individual heritage that longevity depends. There is no term of life for the "species," only a term for the individual; a fact which sets all the speculations of Cornaro, Hufeland, and Flourens at nought. There are limits which neither the "species" nor the individual can be said to pass; no man has been known to live two hundred years; but the number of years which each in mann cites the case of a whole family upon whom coffee acted like opium, while opium had no sensible effect whatever on them; and Dr. Lucas knows a family upon whom the slightest dose of calomel produces violent nervous tremblings. Every physician knows how both predisposition to and absolute protection against certain specific diseases are transmitted. In many families the teeth and hair fall out before the ordinary time, no matter what hygiène be followed. Sir Henry Holland remarks, "the frequency of blindness as an hereditary affection is well known, whether occurring from cataract or other diseases of the parts concerned in vision. The most remarkable of the many examples known to me, is that of a family where four out of five children, otherwise healthy, became totally blind from amaurosis about the age of twelve; the vision having been gradually impaired up to this time. What adds to the singularity of this case is the exist-dividual will reach, without accident, is a ence of some family monument long prior in date, where a female ancestor is represented with several children around her, the inscription recording that all the number were blind." * But not only are structural peculiarities transmitted, we see even queer tricks of manner descending to the children. The writer had a puppy, taken from its mother at six weeks old, who although never taught "to beg" (an accomplishment his mother had been taught), spontaneously took to begging for everything he wanted, when about seven or eight months old: he would beg for food, beg to be let out of the room, and one day was found opposite a rabbit M. Charles Lejoncourt published, in hutch begging for the rabbits. Unless we 1842, his Galerie des Centenaires, in which are to suppose all these cases simple coin- may be read a curious list of examples cidences, we must admit individual herit-proving the hereditary nature of longeage; but the doctrine of probabilities will vity. In one page we have a day laborer not permit us to suppose them coincident. Let us take the idiosyncrasy of cannibalism, which may be safely said not to appear more than once in ten thousand human beings; if, therefore, we take one in ten thousand as the ratio, the chances against any man manifesting the propensity will be ten thousand to one, but the chances against his son also manifesting it will be what some more learned calculator must declare. Not the Species, but the Individual, then, we are forced to admit, presides over heritage; and this will help to ex "Medical Notes and Reflections," p. 23. term depending neither on the "species," nor on his own mode of life, but on the organization inherited from his parents. Temperance, sobriety, and chastity, however desirable, both in themselves and in their effects, will not insure long life; intemperance, hardship, and irregularity will not prevent a man living for a century and a half. The facts are there to prove both propositions. Longevity is an inheritance. Like talent, it may be cultivated; like talent, it may be perverted; but it exists independent of all cultivation, and no cultivation will create it. Some men have a talent for long life. dying at the age of 108, his father lived to 104, his grandfather to 108, and his daughter then living had reached 80. In another we have a saddler whose grandfather died at 112, his father at 113, and he himself at 115; this man, aged 113, was asked by Louis XIV. what he had done to so prolong life; his answer was— "Sire, since I was fifty I have acted upon two principles; I have shut my heart and opened my wine-cellar." M. Lejoncourt also mentions a woman then living aged 150, whose father died at 124, and whose uncle at 113. But the most surprising of the cases cited by Lucas is that of Jean Golembiewski, a Pole, who in 1846 was still living, aged 102, having been eighty | dogs inherit the peculiar cunning necessary years as common soldier, in thirty-five to hunt the peccari without danger. F. campaigns under Napoleon, and having even survived the terrible Russian campaign, in spite of five wounds, and a soldier's recklessness of life. His father died aged 121, and his grandfather, 130. Indeed, the practice of every annuity and insurance office suffices to convince us of ordinary experience having discovered that length of life is somehow dependent on hereditary influence. Although instincts, in the general acceptation of the term, may be said to belong to the species and to be transmitted with the specific type, we have abundant evidence of the individual transmission of what are called instinctive peculiarities, or acquired habits. Thus Girou relates the case of a sporting dog, taken young from its mother and father, who was singularly obstinate, and exhibited the greatest terror at every explosion of the gun, which always excites the ardor of the species. On the owner expressing his surprise to the gentleman from whom he received the dog, he was told that nothing was more likely, for the dog's father had the same peculiarity. How the vicious disposition of horses is transmitted all breeders know. Again, we know that the vice of drunkenness is very apt to be inherited; and that the passion for gambling is little less so. "A lady with whom I was very intimate," relates Da Gama Machado, "and who possessed great wealth, passed her nights in gaming: she died young, from pulmonary disease. Her eldest son was equally addicted to play, and he also died of consumption at the same age as his mother. His daughter inherited the same passion and the same disease."* Other and more crapulous vices are inherited, and are exhibited in cases where the early death of the parents, or the removal of the children in infancy, prevents the idea of any imitation or effect of education being the cause. That the "thieving propensity" is transmitted from father to son through generations, all acquainted with police-courts know. Gall has cited some striking examples; and that murder, like talent, runs in families, is too notorious to need illustrations here. Dogs taught to "point" or "set," transmit the talent. The American Cuvier has observed that young foxes, in those parts of the country where traps are set, manifest much more prudence than even the old foxes in districts where they are less persecuted. Again, birds born in a country inhabited by man inherit their alarm at his presence; but travellers narrate that the same species encountered on uninhabited islands manifest no alarm, and are knocked down as easily as a gentleman in Fleet-street; they soon, however, learn to dread man, and this dread they transmit. As these last illustrations may be relegated to the vague region of instincts, we will confine ourselves to more individual and accidental characteristics. Thus Girou relates how a man known to him had the habit of sleeping on his back, with his right leg crossed over the left; one of his daughters showed the same peculiarity from her birth, and constantly assumed it in her cradle, in spite of her swathings. Venette knew a woman who limped with the right leg; her daughter was born with the same defect in her right leg. Ambrose Paré noticed that several children who had a peculiar mode of shaking the head, inherited it from their parents. The inevitable conclusion from all these facts is, that parents transmit their individual peculiarities of color, form, longevity, idiosyncrasy, &c., to their offspring, and that they do this not as reproducing the species, but as reproducing their own individual organizations. But now comes the difficult part of our inquiry:-Which is the predominating influence, that of the male or that of the female? If both parents join to form the child, does one parent give one group of organs, and another parent another group; or do both give all? "Half is his, and half is thine: it will be worthy of the two!" sings the poet; and the physiologist asks, - Which half? Speaking of mules, Vicq-d'Azir says, with proper caution, that "it seems as if the exterior and the extremities were modified by the father, and that the viscera emanate from the mother." The reserve with which the great anatomist ex *"Théorie des Ressemblances," p. 154, quoted presses himself has not been imitated by by Lucas. "Fonctions du Cerveau," i. 207. his successors; indeed, men are generally averse from uncertainties-they like a de cisive opinion, a distinct formula. Hence opposite conclusion, declaring that it was we have the very popular formula adopted the mare whose influence preponderated by Mr. Orton in his "Lectures"-"That in the foal. General Daumas replied, and the male gives the external configuration, cited a letter addressed to him by Abd-elor in other words, the locomotive organs; Kader, who may certainly be said to unwhile the female gives the internal, or in derstand Arab horses better than Europeother words, the vital organs;" which is ans. The letter is worth reading for its generally stated with more scientific pre-own sake: we can, however, only quote cision thus-"the male gives the animal its testimony on the particular point now system, the female the organic or veget- under discussion. The experience of ative." Very great and authoritative centuries has established," he says, "that names may be cited in support of this the essential parts of the organization, view; and as all such formulas are the ex- such as the bones, the tendons, the nerves, pressions of numerous facts, we must ex- and the veins, are always derived from the pect to find their advocates powerful in stallion. The mare may give the color facts to support them. If there are facts and some resemblance to her structure, which are equally explicit and diametri- but the principal qualities are due to the cally opposed to those used as evidence stallion." This is very weighty testimony, for the theory, it is clear that the theory on which we will only for the present expresses only part of the truth. Let us remark, that it merely asserts the preponderance of the male influence as respects the locomotive system; it does not assert that absolute independence of any female influence, maintained in the formula of Prevost and Daumas, Lallemand and others, which we are now combating. Abd-el-Kader's statement is tantamount to that made by Mr. Orton, see how the case stands. Linnæus says that the internal plant (ie., the organs of fructification) in all hybrids is like the female; the external (organs of vegetation), on the contrary, resembles the male. This is, however, diametrically opposed by De Candolle, who announces it as a general law that the organs of vegetation are given by the female, those of fructification by the male.* When two doctors of such importance differ on a point like this, we may suspect that both are right and both are wrong; and here our suspicion is supported by the mass of facts adduced in the experiments of M. Saguret, which refute the hypothesis of Linnæus and the hypothesis of De Candolle. What we have just indicated with regard to plants, has been the course pursued with regard to animals: one class of observations has seemed to prove that the father bestows the "animal system;" another class of observations has seemed to prove that the mother bestows it; and a third class has proved both theories inadequate. Quite recently General Daumas published the result of his long experience with Arab horses, arguing that according to the testimony of the Arabs, the stallion was the most valuable for purposes of breeding. Upon this, the Inspecteur des Haras, who had traversed Asia for the express purpose of collecting evidence on the subject, published his diametrically * "Physiologie Végétale," p. 716. "Les Chevaux de Sahara;" see also an article in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," May, 1855, on Le Cheval de Guerre. "I do not mean it to be inferred that either parent gives either set of organs uninfluenced by the other parent; but merely that the leading characteristics and qualities of both sets of qualities are due to the male on the one side, rent modifying them only." and to the female on the other, the opposite parent modifying them only." This is a much more acceptable theory than the other, but it is only an approximation to the truth. Mr. Orton's first illustration is the hybrid of the horse and ass. "It is known that the produce of the male ass and the mare is a mule; but I do not think it is equally well-known that the produce of the stallion and the female ass is what has been denominated a hinny-yet such is the case. The mule, the produce of the ass and mare, is essentially a modified ass-the ears are those of an ass somewhat shortened the mane is that of an ass-the tail is that of an ass-the skin and color are those of an ass somewhat modified-the legs are slender, the hoofs high, The body and barrel are round and full, in narrow, and contracted, like those of an ass. which it differs from the ass and resembles the mare.' This description is accurate, but-we put it interrogatively-is it always the de scription of a mule, and never that also of a hinny? This latter, the produce of the stallion and the female ass, "is essentially a modified horse-the ears like those of a horse somewhat lengthened-the mane flowing the tale bushy like that of a horse-the skin is fine like that of a horse-the legs are stronger, and the hoofs broad and expanded like those of a horse. The body and barrel are flat and narrow, in which it differs from the horse, and resembles its mother the ass." From these facts, Mr. Orton deduces the conclusion, that the offspring of a cross is not simply a mixture of the two parents, nor is it an animal that has accidentally a similitude to one or other of its parents, inasmuch as we can produce at will either the hinney or the mule. The reader will presently see why such a conclusion cannot be accepted; and we may at once anticipate what will hereafter be more fully explained, by saying that the differences Mr. Orten signalizes are easily interpreted by another theory. In point of fact, both mule and hinny are modified asses: in each the structure and disposition of the ass predominates; and it does so in virtue of that greater "potency of race" which belongs to the ass a potency which is less effective on the hinny, because the superior vigor of the stallion modifies it, according to ascertained laws. "I would call your consideration," Mr. Orton continues, "to a very curious circumstance pertaining to the voice of the mule and the hinny; to which my attention was called by Mr. Lort. The mule brays, the hinny neighs. The why and wherefore of this is a perfect mystery, until we come to apply the knowledge afforded us by the law I have given. The male gives the locomotive organs, and the muscles are amongst these; the muscles are the organs which modulate the voice of the animal; the mule has the muscular structure of its sire the ass, and brays; the hinny has the muscular structure of its sire the horse, and neighs." when it was hurt. A similar remark has been made by all who have attended to cross-breeding in birds; the hybrid of the goldfinch and the canary has the song of the goldfinch mingled with occasional notes of the canary, which seem perpetually about to gain the predominance. Finally, we know, how, in the human family, a magnificent voice is inherited from a mother as often as from a father. These illustrations, apart from their interest, teach us to be cautious in generalizing from a few facts, however striking, in questions so complex as all biological questions are. Let us, however, continue to call on Mr. Orton for facts. He quotes a letter from Dr. George Wilson (whose opinion on any subject will be worth hearing) to Dr. Harvey, respecting the produce of the Manx cat and the common cat. The Manx cat has no tail, and is particularly long in the hinder legs. "You will see," says Dr. Wilson, "from the facts communicated, that where the Manx cat was the mother, the kittens had tails of a sort; where the Manx cat was the father, three-fourths of the kittens had no tail." Mr. Orton also quotes a communication made to him by Mr. Garnett, of Clitheroe : "From these I select those pertaining to the Muscovy duck and some hybrids produced between it and the common duck. You are aware that the Muscovy drake exceeds in a striking degree the duck in size: the drake weighing from 8 to 9 lbs,, while the duck weighs only from 3 to 4 lbs. Hybrids produced from the Muscovy drake and common duck followed this peculiarity of the male parent as to the relative size of the male and female hybrids; the male weighing from 5 to 6 lbs., the female not half as much. On the other hand, the difference in the size of the sexes when the hybrids were the produce of the common drake and the Muscovy duck, was not apparent." A valuable observation, certainly. Mr. Orton adds the following of his own. He placed a Chochin cock with his common hens: This seems decisive, until we extend our observations, and then we find the law altogether at fault. Thus the produce "Reasoning that the vital organs were due of a bull and a mare neither lowed nor to the female, then the cross between these birds neighed, but uttered a shrill cry somewhat (being externally Cochins and internally comlike that of the goat. The produce of a dog of the egg being a vital function. You know mon hens) should lay white eggs, the secretion and a she-wolf sometimes bark and some- that the Cochin lays a chocolate-colored egg. times howl, according to Buffon; and the The half-breed did what theory said they should produce of a bitch-fox and a dog, accord-do-laid white eggs; and not only white eggs, ing to Burdach, barked like a dog, though but eggs also which on the evidence of myself somewhat hoarsely, and howled like a wolf and family, were very inferior in taste, having lost the mellow, buttery taste of the Cochin | an evidence that the "vital organs" are egg." not solely given by the female. But he has recorded another curious fact respecting this same experiment which might have made him aware of the problematical nature of his theory, had not his sagacity been hoodwinked by the theory: "These same half-bred birds afforded another and a very unlooked-for illustration of the position we have taken. They were all, when first hatched, like the Cochin cock, profusely feathered on the legs and feet, so much so, that they had to be marked to distinguish them from the pure bred birds. We see here that, according to the law, the male parent implanted his characteristics; but what was curious, in a few weeks, in some of the half-breeds all, and in many most of the leg feathers were shed. Two out of some twenty birds only retained them in any very conspicuous degree. Now, why was this? The cock had implanted his external characteristics, the hen had given her vital organs. The feathers of the male were there; but the vital organs necessary to their growth were not there; and consequently, after a time, for want of nutriment, these feathers were shed." We will not here enter on the question of the growth of feathers (a very complex matter), but, accepting his own premises, ask him, if the external characteristics are thus dependent on the vital organs for their growth and development, and these vital organs are given by the female, how does the child ever exhibit the characteristics of the male, after infancy? Of what use is it for the male to implant his characteristics, when the female influence is thus certain to annihilate them. Mr. Orton further cites the practice of Bakewell with respect to his celebrated Dishly sheep. His rams might be bought or hired, for a good price; but his best ewes were sacred. These he would neither sell nor let. As a counter-statement, let it be noted that, according to Girou, the farmers are more particular about the bull than about the cow when they want a good milking cow, for it is observed that the property of abundant secretion of milk is more certain to be transmitted from a bull than from a cow. We question the fact of the bull having greater influence than the cow, believing that in each case the property is transmitted according to direct heritage; but that the bull should be known to have any importance in this respect, is The result of Mr. Orton's researches prove that the male does transmit his qualities to his descendants; as a matter of fact this must be always distinctly remembered; but neither his researches nor those of his predecessors suffice to prove this transmission to be absolute, in the sense required by those who maintain that the male gives the animal and the female the vegetative organs; as well as by those who maintain that the male influence necessarily and invariably predominates in the animal, the female in the vegetative organs. Still it is important to know that by the pollen of flowers we can modify the tints, and produce any varieties of tulip, violet, or dahlia; important to know that we can also modify the plumage of birds, and the color of animals: it is important to know that the male qualities are transmissible. But for scientific rigor this is not enough. Before we can establish a law of this kind, we must be sure that the fact is constant and admits of no exceptions, or only of such apparent exceptions as may be classed under unexplained perturbations. Now daily observations, no less than recorded cases, assure us that the law is very far from being constant, that the female as unmistakeably transmits her qualities as the male transmits his, and that any theorist who should reverse the current theory and declare the mother bestowed the animal system, leaving the vegetative to the father, would be able to make a formidable array of facts. Let us glance awhile at the evidence. It is said the male gives the color, but the female does so likewise. A black cat and a white cat will have kittens which may be all black, all white, or black spotted with white, and white spotted with black. Every street will furnish examples. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire speaks of a case under his observation, of a black buck and a white doe; the first produce was a black and white fawn; the second a fawn entirely black, except a white spot above the hoof.* Burdach mentions the case of a raven and gray crow, who had a brood of five: two black like the father; two gray like the mother; and one mixed. The same result is observed with respect to all other qualities. But perhaps the * "Dict. Classique d'Histoire Naturelle," x. 121. |