382 



The Journal of Heredity 



public opinion. What are we going to 

 do about it? That is the question at 

 last forced on ophthalmologists — espe- 

 cially on the Section on Ophthalmology 

 of the American Medical Association. 

 Shall we complacently continue to do 

 nothing, thus retarding social advance- 

 ment and even ophthalmology itself? 

 The answer to this question involves 

 many details, both of principle and of 

 method, far too comolicated for discus- 



sion now. But in executive session a 

 motion will be made for the appoint- 

 ment of a committee to report on this 

 subject another year.^ If at that time 

 or later, some plan can be formulated 

 for the prevention of this form of blind- 

 ness, it will perhaps seem worth while 

 for us to have directed our attention 

 now, even in this hasty manner, to the 

 relation of hereditary eye defects to 

 genetics and eugenics. 



A STRAIN PRODUCING 



MULTIPLE BIRTHS 



C. B. Davenport, Cold Spring Harbor, L. I. 



AMONG the findings of the 

 Eugenics Record Office has been 

 that of a family in Cleveland 

 (Mrs. W. G. C.) which has a 

 remarkable record in the production of 

 two or more children at a birth. The-, 

 history has a special interest owing to 

 the fact that the present Mrs. C. has 

 married three times. There is no ia- 

 formation at present available concern- 

 ing the tendency toward multiple births 

 in the families of the husbands, but, in 

 view of the fact that multiple births 

 are relatively rare, it is exceedingly 

 improbable that all three husbands 

 belong to families having such ten- 

 dencies. The propositus (Mrs. C.) has 

 been interviewed at different times by 

 three representatives of the Eugenics 

 Record Office. To each the history 

 given has differed in some details. The 

 last of the field workers who visited 

 the woman secured the facts concerning 

 her first husband and her children by 

 him which had remained unknown to 

 die other field workers, and were iudec' ' 

 divulged only after five visits had been 

 made by the last field worker. Further 

 studies are being made upon the family, 

 but it seems probable that the facts are 

 now so nearly ascertained as to warrant 

 a description of it. 



The details of the family are set 

 forth in the accompanying figure (Fig. 

 15), which is a pedigree chart for five 

 generations. The propositus is No. 3 

 of the third generation, III 3. Her 

 mother and her mother's mother are 

 said by the propositus to have had only 

 twins, triplets, and quadruplets. It must 

 be said in all candor that the propositus, 

 although willing to cooperate, has cer- 

 tain mental limitations which make it 

 necessary to check all her statements 

 from independent sources, and this has 

 not been possible in the case of the 

 statement concerning her mother and 

 mother's mother, as the propositus was 

 born in Paris and her parents and 

 grandparents never came to America. 



The propositus married first husband 

 No. 1, and by him had twins (IV 1, 2) 

 but her husband, Mr. M., died fourteen 

 months after their marriage. Two 

 years after her first marriage, the pro- 

 positus married T. R., who was a 

 French Canadian, and who died in 

 1896. By him the propositus had first 

 children, twins. Violet and Clay. This 

 Violet married a Mr. N., and had a 

 single child, and two years later twins, 

 who with the mother died shortly after 

 birth. The next children of the pro- 

 positus were triplets, named Esther. 

 Flossie and Theodore. These all died 



' That committee was appointed and we have begun the work. 



