INHERITANCE OF HUMAN CHARACTERS 



523 



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country, even if no more drastic action is taken. Otherwise the group 

 is bound to be an increasing burden on the community, adding con- 

 stantly to the tax needed for their 

 support. 



Investigations of competent 

 officials in the employ of insane hos- 

 pitals have accumulated a mass of 

 evidence demonstrating the herit- 

 ability of many forms of nervous 

 diseases which most commonly 

 behave as recessives. Rosanofif and 

 Orr,"^ in a study of 206 matings 

 between individuals from more or 

 less insane stock, found 1,097 

 children, 146 of whom died in 

 childhood. There were 351 afflicted 

 offspring to 586 normal. The theoretical expectations, knowing with 

 more or less certainty the character of the parents, were 359 to 

 578. There are presented (Figs. 98, 99) two typical family pedi- 

 grees. In the first an insane man was twice married, each iime to an 



Fig. 98. — Pedigree showing hered- 

 ity of insanity : (i) ignorant, "queer"; 

 (2) Insane, was in sanitarium, com- 

 mitted suicide; (3) eccentric, \'iolent 

 temper, ideas of persecution against 

 neighbors; (4) eccentric, not well bal- 

 anced; (5) alcoholic, lazy, indolent; 

 (6) dementia praecox, paranoid, in 

 state hospital; (7) violent temper, 

 queer, extreme dolichocephaly; (8) 

 defective, cranial malformation; (9) 

 inferior, "slow." (From Downing, 

 after Rosanoff and Orr.) 



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Fig. 99.— Pedigree showing heredity of insanity and neurotic tendency; 

 (i) epileptic; (2) insane for a time, recovered; (3) epileptic, imbecile; (4) imbecile; 

 (5) melancholy in early married life, recovered; (6) insane five years, was in state 

 hospital, recovered; (7) insomnia, neuralgia; (8) daughter had spells of excitement; 

 (9) feeble-minded; (10) dementia praecox, katatonic, in state hospital; (11) died of 

 marasmus, had one convulsion. {From Downing, after Rosanof and Orr.) 



eccentric woman, undoubtedly mildly insane. All the offspring were 

 unbalanced. In the second case, those distinctly neurotic are indi- 

 cated in sohd color; those having a neurotic element in the germ 

 material are shaded. It might seem as if insane individuals would 

 scarcely add materially to the general population, since they are com- 

 monly in asylums. Often, however, the inherited insanity does not 



^Eugenics Record Ofl&ce (Cold Springs Harbor, N.Y.) Bulletin No. 5, 1911. 



