462 



EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



ROSANOFF AND ORR (DATA ON INHERITANCE OF INSANITY) 



(N= Normal; I = Insane) 



* Eight have not passed the age of incidence. 



These data might readily be taken to prove that insanity is a simple 

 Mendelian recessive, but a scrutiny of the methods of collecting data 

 make geneticists somewhat skeptical. "The data," says Castle, "have 

 the scientific value of gossip, consisting of answers made by 'inform- 

 ants' to leading questions designed to bring out any weakness in the 

 pedigree. Like inquiries made concerning any individual in the com- 

 munity would show him an unmistakable victim of insanity 



Three-fourths of their persons insane for pedigree purposes would be 

 classed as fully normal, if they occurred in families free from insane 

 patients. Such classification has little scientific value." This state- 

 ment may be severe, but it seems justified by the fact that persons 

 who are described as "a crank"; "easily excited, nervous tempera- 

 ment"; "very nervous"; "erratic, excitable"; "nervous, little things 

 bothered her, worried a great deal"; are classed as insane. Doubtless 

 many of us who think we are normal might be classed in some of these 

 categories by our acquaintances. 



As yet it would be quite unsafe to classify any of the insanities as 

 simple Mendelian unit characters. The subject is a very complex and 

 difficult one, and genetic results will continue to be unsatisfactory 

 until the psychiatrists are able more accurately to diagnose and classify 

 the "insanities." 



Pedigrees of royal families. — -Members of royal families have been 

 used as data for the study of human heredity. Records of these indi- 

 viduals and their traits are preserved in the archives and should furnish 

 good material for genetic study. The well-known writer Frederick 

 Adams Woods has made an exhaustive study of the pedigrees of Eu- 

 ropean royal families and has published the results of these studies. 



