Johnson: Parentage and Infant Mortality 



123 



method to be mentioned last is believed 

 by the writer to be the method of great- 

 est reliability, the first three methods 

 to be mentioned will have some cor- 

 roborative value, especially in giving 

 more concrete evidence to skeptical 

 jurors in the first few years of the appli- 

 cation of the method. 



1. The alternative inheritance of 

 many abnormalities. Davenport in his 

 " Heredity in Relation to Eugenics" has 

 a list of many abnormalities which are 

 inherited alternately and in a more or 

 less Mendelian manner. In those cases 

 where there is present one of these 

 abnormalities in both the suspected 

 parent and the child, we have corrobora- 

 tive evidence, but this method alone can 

 be of limited use only. 



2. More uniform application of the 

 alternative inheritance of certain htiman 

 traits which are inherited in a more or 

 less Mendelian fashion, such as hair, 

 eye and skin color. Since there is 

 always some color, this comparison is 

 possible in all cases, in contrast to the 

 first class where the abnormality is only 

 occasionally present. Conclusive evi- 

 dence is hardly to be expected, although 

 the evidential value becomes greater 

 where both parent and child had some 

 one recessive characteristic. It is true 

 that there is a court decision where 

 evidence as to eye color ^ was ruled out, 

 and a similar one in respect to hair color, 

 but it is evident that the judge's reason 

 in each case was not that these traits 

 were thought by him not to be inherited 

 in some degree, but a justifiable fear lest 

 this evidence alone might too greatly 

 influence the jury, in view of the im- 

 portance of reaching conclusions as to 

 parentage only on the basis of many 

 traits. 



3. The papillary ridges of the palm 

 and sole. Prof. H. H. Wilder, of Smith 

 College, and other workers have now 

 well estabhshed that there is a large role 

 of heredity in the determinations of the 

 patterns of these hnes on the palm and 

 sole. These are the lines so well known 

 in the finger prints now so frequently 

 taken for identification purposes. I can 



vouch for this because I have on the 

 palm of one of my hands one peculiar 

 feature of the palm pattern common to 

 my mother, m3^self and my older son. 

 The use of the palms and soles is decid- 

 edly superior to the class of evidence 

 heretofore discussed, but since it does 

 not lend itself as yet readily to statistical 

 analysis, we must look mainly to the last 

 method, the anthropometric. 



Anthropometry, or the science of 

 human measurements, offers us the 

 main reliance because by taking one 

 hundred measurements on the child, 

 on the suspected parent, and on the 

 known parent, if the other parent be 

 known, it will be possible to establish an 

 index of correlation which will run very 

 much higher in the case of real parent- 

 age than where there is no relation. The 

 one hundred measurements to be taken 

 should include a number on the ear, for 

 the reason that this organ is peculiarly 

 unsusceptible to modifications and to 

 change in its proportions during life. 

 Where the ear has been pierced, the 

 lobal characteristics should be rejected, 

 and possibly also the amount of projec- 

 tion from the head should be rejected 

 as having too much of the modification 

 element. Head shape and facial fea- 

 tures should be used for a large number 

 of measurements because of their re- 

 markable variability. The other meas- 

 urements would be those where the 

 measurement is primarily a skeletal one, 

 little affected by the weight and health 

 of the individual. Davenport has shown 

 that different skeletal dimensions may 

 be inherited independently. There are 

 two disturbing factors which should 

 be recognized. One is the change in 

 proportion between male and female. 

 This is readily provided for by the use of 

 correction factors which eliminate sex 

 differences. A more disturbing element 

 is change of proportion with age, but this 

 again can be largely eliminated by the 

 use of correction factors. 



There remains now to discuss the 

 feasibility of this method. In the first 

 place, a large number of measurements 

 must first be made on parents and their 



«_ People vs. Carney, 29 Hun. (N. Y.), 47, 49 (1883). (Evidence of the color of the child's 

 eyes is not admissible to show its paternity.) 



