H. H. Newman 29 



5. C. D. Uszell, aet. (1912) 74, night-blind from infancy, "short- 

 sighted" (probably myopic) and has suffered considerably fi-om Pterygium, 

 having been rather recently operated on for the latter with apparently 

 beneficial results. He is the father, by his normal and unrelated wife, 

 of six normal sons and four normal daughters and the grandfather 

 of nine normal and ten night-blind grandsons and of eleven normal 

 grand-daughters. Mr Uzzell has taken a lively iuterest in the present 

 investigation and has furnished some of the most important information. 

 A quotation from one of his letters should prove interesting: "Night- 

 blindness and near-sightedness were transmitted to our family on the 

 maternal side, but personally I never knew of but one case in a 

 preceding generation, and he was a (second) cousin of my mother. He 

 was a good physician and somewhat of a zoologist. I used to have an 

 extensive correspondence with him, hojDing thereby to find some way to 

 remedy ray own defective vision, but he was unable to assist me in any 

 way. My mother, who was perfectly normal in vision, had four male 

 children, three of whom were affected just as I am, and one that was 

 not. (He failed in this letter to mention that he had five normal 

 sisters, but this fact was brought out later.) All my children have 

 perfect eyes. This trouble does not seem to be transmitted regularly, 

 but it seems to fall on alternate generations, so my mother told me. It 

 is also transmitted from the father through the daughter to the grand- 

 sons. I have never heard of a girl in the family connection who did 

 not have perfect sight. The children of both my sons (referring only to 

 those with families) have perfect sight, but the eyes of my daughters' 

 sons are nearly all affected, one daughter having seven sons, five of 

 whom are affected. My other three daughters have each one son and 

 each is affected. (Reference is made to living sons only. One grand- 

 son V, 30 has been born since the receipt of this communication.)" 

 Miss Elizabeth L. Brown (V, S) writes of C. D. U., her grandfather : 

 " Grandfather (III, 5) was unable to see the moon and stars until 

 he was about thirty. He sa3's the defect grows less and less as he 

 grows older. He has had much trouble with a growth similar to 

 cataract, which grows in the inner corner of the eye and gradually 

 spreads toward the centre of the eye with advancing years. (This con- 

 dition has been diagnosed as Pterygium, a progressive formation on the 

 cornea, beginning as a pinguicula located at the nasal angle of the 

 cornea and overgrowing the cornea as a fold or wing of tissue, usually 

 highly vascular in character.) It sometimes becomes inflamed. Opera- 

 tions have relieved the condition to some extent." 



