398 



The [olrxal of Heredity 



All the evidence indicates that the 

 pancreas of the fetus completely took 

 the place of the pancreas of the mother, 

 which is the same as saying that the 

 constitution of the maternal blood was 

 equivalent, from that point of view, to 

 the constitution of the fetal blood. 

 Under the circumstances, the former 

 indul)itabl>' derived from the latter. 



The important point is to notice that 

 constitutional equivalence did not exist 

 after parturition ; it depend .,d strictly on 

 the incessant exchanges of fetal serum 

 with maternal servim. The result of 

 the experiment will not permit us to go 

 beyond that conclusion; and this result 

 leads us to the behef that the influence 

 of the fetus on the mother, in the cir- 

 cumstances observed, is but a momen- 

 tary influence: soluble products filter 

 through the placenta and parasitic 

 organisms pass through it. 



Henceforth we arc in a position to 

 ]jut the question on the proper basis. 

 Enlarging the interpretation of this 

 experiment, shall we admit that in 

 addition to the diverse products of the 

 activity of the organism, the blood also 

 contains the "character" of the animal 

 considered, or at least the substances 

 which determine these characters, and 

 that these substances, transmitted by 

 the fetus to the mother, become per- 

 manent constituents of the latter? 

 For everything is there; and imjjregna- 

 tion, as it is understood, necessitates 

 the transmission of fully determined 

 characters: stripes, colorations, forms of 

 hair, absence or presence of horns, etc. 

 Once this was believed to be the reality, 

 and such a belief served as an argument 

 against the transfusion of blood. Alain 

 Lamy, of Caen, declared in 1668, in the 

 Journal des S^avants "that it was to be 

 feared that, transfused, the blood of a 

 calf would communicate to a man the 

 stupidity and brutal instincts of that 

 animal." The author also demands to 

 know what becomes, in the veins of a 

 man, of the particles of blood destined, 

 in the calf, to i)roduce the horns. 



At the jjresent day we are forced to 

 reject such an interpretation. If it was 

 really based on fact, telegonic jjhe- 

 nomena ought to l)e produced with 



extreme frequency, as a result of the use 

 of serotheraj^y alone. Besides, the 

 experiments described above, not to say 

 the most elementary logic, fully prove 

 that the i^eculiarities of an animal do 

 not promenade in its blood, but that 

 they are the very substance of that 

 animal. And since the spermatozoon 

 does not intervene directly in impregnat- 

 ing the ovum, it certainly does not 

 intervene indirectly by the intermediary 

 of the fetus, in the constitution of which 

 it has become a part. We must, then, 

 deliberately reject all idea of the trans- 

 mission of definite characters, conforma- 

 tion or coloration of parts, of a given 

 male to the descendants of another 

 male, by the impregnation of a female. 



REAL EFFECT OF EXCHANGES. 



Nevertheless, since exchanges take 

 place between the fetus and the mother, 

 since these exchanges provoke a trans- 

 formation in the maternal serum suffi- 

 cient, for example, to furnish a substi- 

 tute for the internal secretion of the 

 pancreas, is it plausible, that that 

 transformation should whoU}' disappear 

 after parturition, that the maternal 

 constitution should again become 

 exactly what it was prior to gestation? 



Evidently not! Every change in- 

 duced in an organism necessarily leaves 

 traces after it. But these traces do not 

 and can not have anything to do with 

 the sup]JOsed process of telegony. Be- 

 yond any doubt, the maternal organism 

 has been placed, during gestation, under 

 conditions of life very different from 

 the antecedent conditions, and from 

 these conditions a modification neces- 

 sarily results. But that modification 

 is as much a function of the maternal 

 organism as of the condition in which it 

 is found; the fetus does not impose its 

 own constitution on its mother, no more 

 than the temperature imposes on organ- 

 isms on which it acts the "constitution" 

 of heat-radiation. In fact, the exchanges 

 between fetus and mother result in a 

 new state for the latter, different not 

 only from her antecedent state, but from 

 that of her ])roduct. The maternal 

 organism is not "impregnated" in any 

 degree; the real phenomenon therefore 



