A SECOND BRACHYDACTYLOUS FAMILY. 

 By H. DRINKWATER, M.D., F.R.S. (Edin.), F.L.S. 



I HAVE already published accounts of three families showing an 

 inherited symmetrical shortness of the fingers and toes in individuals 

 who are also below the average in stature. In one — the " Brachy- 

 dactylous Family'" — the fingers are reduced to about half the normal 

 length : in the other two families they are intermediate in length 

 between these very shoi-t ones and the fingers of average normal 

 individuals, a condition which I have designated by the term "Minor- 

 Brachydactyly^" 



In both types, the shortening was shown to be due chiefly to an 

 abortive condition of the middle phalanx. The main features are 

 represented in the outline illustrations in Fig. 1, where A shows the 

 bones of the middle finger of a normal adult, C the Brachydactylous 

 condition, and B the Minor-Brachydactylous. 



In G the middle phalanx (2) is seen to have become ankylosed to 

 the terminal phalanx (3). 



In the Summer of 1913, my friend Dr J. D. Lloyd informed me that 

 he knew of some people resident in his neighbourhood whose hands 

 closely resembled those of one or other of the above-mentioned families; 

 and he not only afforded me an opportunity of examining some of them 

 at his own surgery, but very generously consented to allow me to cany 

 out whatever investigations I might be disposed to undertake with 

 regard to them. 



Examination at once made it evident that the abnormalities in 

 these new cases are identical with those described in my paper on 

 " Braehydactyly " ; there is, namely, the maximum amount of shortening 

 of the digits, and the same characteristic shortness of stature. The 

 essential peculiarities are so exactly similar that one cannot resist the 



' "An account of a Brachydactylous Family," Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin. Vol. xxviii. Part i. 

 " "Account of a Family showing Minor-Brachydactyly," Journal of Genetics, February, 

 1912. " Minor-Brachydaetyly " No. 2, Journal of Genetics, February, 1914. 



