HEREDITY. 243 



eo perpetuated and increased as to become permanent dis- 

 tinctions. 



Of special instances, there are many besides that of the oft 

 en-cited Otter-breed of sheep, descended from a single short 

 legged lamb, and that of the six-fingered Gratio Kelleia, who 

 transmitted his peculiarity in different degrees, to several of 

 his children and to some of his grandchildren. In a paper con- 

 tributed to the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for July 

 1863, Dr Strutters gives several cases of hereditary digital 

 variations. Esther P , who had six fingers on one hand, be- 

 qusathed this malformation, along some lines of her descend- 

 ants, for two, three, and four generations. A S inherited 

 an extra digit on each hand and each foot from his father ; 

 and C Gr , who also had six fingers and six toes, had an aunt 

 and a grandmother similarly formed. A collection of evidence 

 has been made by Mr Sedgwick, and published by him in the 

 Medico- Chirurgical Review for April and for July 1863, in 

 two articles on " The Influence of Sex in limiting Hereditary 

 Transmission." From these articles are selected the following 



o 



cases and authorities : Augustin Duforet, a pastry-cook of 

 Douai, who had but two instead of three phalanges to all his 

 fingers and toes, inherited this malformation from his grand- 

 father and father, and had it in common with an uncle and 

 numerous cousins. An account has been given byDr Lepine, 

 of a man with only three fingers on each hand and four toes 

 on each foot, and whose grandfather and son exhibited the 

 like anomaly. Bechet describes Victoire Barre as a woman 

 who, like her father and sister, had but one developed finger 

 on each hand, and but two toes on each foot, and whose mon- 

 strosity re-appeared in two daughters. And there is a case 

 where the absence of two distal phalanges on the hands was 

 traced for two generations. The various recorded instances 

 in which there has been transmission from one generation to 



o 



another, of webbed-fingers, of webbed-toes, of hare-lip, of 

 congenital luxation of the thigh, of absent patellae, of 

 club-foot, &c., would occupy more space than can here be 



