98 ON THE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITARY 



disease in those patients from whom they were 

 taken, I may speak most confidently; and the more 

 so, because, in almost every instance, it has been 

 made at a pubHc hospital, and subject to the 

 correction and criticism of other observers. My 

 plan has been to take only those cases in which 

 no one felt any doubt as to the fact of the patient 

 being subject to hereditary syphilis. Mr. Cole- 

 man, from whom I have received invaluable 

 assistance during the inquiry, examined the 

 patients' mouths, and made casts of their teeth. 

 I may appeal to the casts on the table, apart from 

 any description I may offer, as being accurate 

 models of the teeth of a number of patients who 

 have suffered in infancy from inherited syphilis. 

 I may safely leave it to you to decide whether 

 they do not exhibit a remarkable similarity of 

 type amongst themselves, and at the same time 

 special features of difference from all others. 

 Amongst these peculiarities is, first, their small- 

 ness ; the teeth, especially those of the lower jaw, 

 stand apart, with interspaces ; are rounded and 

 peg-like in form, instead of being flat. This is 

 exhibited in Fig. 1, Plate II. But the most im- 

 portant characteristics are to be found in the 

 upper incisors, especially the two central ones : 

 they are of a much more conical form than these 

 teeth normally present (see Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8, 

 Plate I.). Well- formed incisor teeth are harder at 

 their cutting surface than at their necks ; the syphi- 



