360 



The Journal of Heredity 



The character behaves apjiarcntly as 

 a dominant in the males and as a reces- 

 sive in females. Its transmission, there- 

 fore, is qtiite i)arallel to the inheritance 

 of horns in the crossing of a breed of 

 sheep in which only the males have 

 horns with a breed in which both sexes 

 are hornless. Owin*.^, probably, to some 

 hormone ]jeculiar to the male sex, the 

 white lock is manifest in the heterozy- 

 gous males. 



The development of hair in human 

 beings is markedly influenced by sex, 

 both as to its vigor of growth and extent 

 of distribution. It is a noteworthy 

 fact that baldness in man, according to 

 recent studies of Miss Osborn,^ behaves 

 as a dominant in males and as a recessive 

 in females. The limitation of the white 

 lock to the males in the family which 

 we have studied, may have some under- 

 lying association with the transmission 

 of baldness. It is a curious fact, 

 however, that it should be associated 

 with the male sex in one family, while 

 its transmission is independent of sex 

 in others. In one pedigree described 

 in Pearson, Nettleship and Usher's 



Monopjaph on Albinism in Man (Part 1, 

 p. 265). a white occipital lock occnrred 

 only in males, but was transmitted 

 through females. In each case the 

 white lock skii:)ped one generation, and 

 in no case was the son of an affected 

 male known to have exhibited the 

 character. There were, therefore, a 

 number of unaffected males in the 

 family, but the whole i)edigree is 

 nevertheless consistent with the view 

 that the white lock is dominant only 

 in the male sex. 



A PAR.\LLEL AMONG SHEEP 



There is no evident reason why a 

 white lock should be associated with a 

 particular sex in some families and not 

 in others. The character is not sex- 

 linked in the sense in which this term is 

 applied to night-blindness and haemo- 

 philia in man, or to various characters 

 of Drosophila. However, a parallel 

 phenomenon is present among sheep, 

 in which only the males of some breeds 

 are horned, while both sexes have horns 

 in other breeds. 



Eugenics and Military Exemptions 



The worst effect that a war has on 

 any nation is to lower the average of its 

 racial stock. It should be the object 

 of every nation, therefore, to fight its 

 wars with a minimum loss of its best 

 stocks. 



The draft act of the United States 

 exempts the following: "persons engaged 

 in industries, including agriculture, 

 found to be necessary to the militar\' 

 estaljlishment or the effective oj^eration 

 of the military forces or the maintcnan-e 

 of national interests during the emer- 

 gency." 



The nation will be justified in calling 

 up the talent that is unrejjlaceable in 

 various activ^ities after it has exhausted 

 the numljcr of replaceable men who are 

 equallv gf)od as soldiers, but not Ijefore. 

 In addition, therefore, to the men who 

 are necessary for the production of 

 war supplies, there should also l)e ex- 

 emption of those men whose trained 



abilities make them valuable to the 

 national interests. These should not 

 be drafted as long as there is plenty of 

 material possessing ]jh\'sique, courage, 

 and the fighting spirit. If called into 

 military ser\-ice, it is probable that these 

 men will be used as mere privates, not 

 as officers ; and to place ability of a high 

 order in the ranks in this way is unwisely 

 jeopardizing the national interests. This 

 is true not only from the stand] )oint of 

 the jjresent generation but still more 

 from that of future generations. 



Certainly with conscription within 

 the narrow range of twenty-one to 

 thirty, and not all men of this age used, 

 it is indefensible to take men of extra- 

 ordinary ability in any direction not 

 utilizable in the Army, when the work 

 can be done by men whose loss would 

 be less felt by the nation. 



RoswELL H. Johnson, 

 University of Pittsburgh. 



2 JoLKN.M. oi" Hi'Ki-.niTV, VII, pp. 347-355, 1916. 



