552 



The Jotrxal of Heredity 



tics, and they arc being comixircd with 

 wards in other American cities. Miss 

 Sadie Scorer has been particularly en- 

 gaged on the analysis of the racial 

 contribution of these several wards. 



Other jiroblcms on hand at this insti- 

 tution are the development of new psy- 

 chometric tests for adults, a study of 

 the gcogra]jhical distributicn of emi- 

 nence in Europe, and a further analysis 

 of Woods's distribution of eminence by 

 names on a jjcrcentage basis. In all 

 these investigations (except that with 

 regard to the inheritance of traits in 

 the eye which, having no social signifi- 

 cance, is merely genetic) the viewpoint 

 kept before the student at all times is 

 that of actual race betterment, as distinct 

 from a mere tabulation of genetic facts. 



Dr. H. E. Jordan of the dc])artmcnt 

 of anatomy, University of Virginia, is 

 working on the inheritance of twinning, 

 and also of left-handedness. His data 

 on the first subject give him ground for 

 belief that twinning behaves as a Men- 

 delian recessive. In regard to the in- 

 heritance of left-handedness, he said, in 

 a recent lecture: 



left-handedness. 



"Left-handedness or right-handed- 

 ness may be considered alternative or 

 unit characters in a Mendelian sense. 

 In terms of presence and absence, to 

 which scheme the majority of Men- 

 delian characters appears to conform, 

 right-handedness may be conceived as 

 dependent on the jjrescnee of the deter- 

 miner in the germ-plasm, left-handed- 

 ness and ambidexterity as the result of 

 its absence. But right-handed indi- 

 viduals arc of two sorts, those both of 

 whose parents were right-handed, and 

 those with only one ])arent riglit- 

 handed. The former are said to l)c of 

 duplex, the latter of simplex, condition. 

 Those with both j)arents left-handed, 

 i.e., lacking the determiner of right- 

 handedness, are said to be nulliplex. 

 The right-handed condition dominates 

 or masks the left-handed condition in 

 the hybrid generation. When left- 

 handed mate with left-handed, all the 

 children will be left-handed. When the 

 detenniner for a character is absent 

 from the germ-i)lasm of the i)arent. that 



character can not appear in the body of 

 the offsjjring. When simplex mate with 

 simjjlcx, one in every four will be left- 

 handed. This is the well-known 1 to 3 

 Mendelian ratio for hybrid crosses with 

 respect to a particular pair of unit char- 

 acters. When simplex mate with nulli- 

 plex one-half of the offspring will lack 

 the determiner for right-handedness and 

 be left-handed." 



Dr. Jordan further notes, "I have on 

 hand also a considerable body of data 

 relative to the inheritance of various 

 types of thumb-prints, but up to the 

 present I have not been able to make any 

 very satisfactory interpretation of my 

 material . ' ' 



Miss Isabellc V. Kendig, late of the 

 Monson State Hospital, Massachusetts, 

 has recently finished an intensive study 

 of one Massachusetts famih' belonging 

 to the old American stock. The pro- 

 genitor of the line left England in 1623, 

 establishing himself at Plymouth; from 

 there his descendants moved inland and 

 finally settled among the hills of western 

 Massachusetts. From that time they 

 have begun to degenerate, and it was 

 the object of the investigation to learn 

 why. "There, in an isolated and un- 

 favorable environment," Miss Kendig 

 says, "they intermarried and multiplied, 

 till today their blood has impregnated 

 the entire community and rendered the 



town of B a byword for shiftless- 



ness and poverty, for alcoholism, im- 

 morality and feeble-mindcdness." The 

 investigation well shows the danger to 

 the commonwealth in the tendency for 

 like mate with Hke, thus emphasizing 

 and perpetuating bad characteristics 

 wliicli, in an environment that allowed 

 more out-crossing, might disappear. 



.marriage selection. 



Dr. Wilhelmina E. Key of the State 

 Institution for Feebleminded at Folk, 

 Pennsylvania, has nearh- completed 

 the study of a Pennsylvania family of 

 more than 1,800 individuals, about half 

 of whom are in the direct line of descent 

 from two pairs of Gennan immigrants 

 of over a century ago; the remainder 

 were studied in connection with strains 

 into which marriage occurred. Both 

 networks ])reak u]) into widely divergent 



