122 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



vessels, it is questionable whether in a stock such 

 as we have here to deal with, where, among many 

 and varied nervous disorders, including gross 

 physical defect, women — who, as a general rule, have 

 a certain exemption from apoplexy — suffered from 

 fatal attacks at the age of thirty-four and even twenty- 

 four years, there may not have been, in addition to 

 the weakness of the vessel-wall, a contributory 

 weakness in the supporting structures, such as the 

 nerve fibres and the neurogliar tissue. Yet it is 

 but fair to admit that in one of the best-known of 

 modern medical text-books, written, however, by 

 one who makes no claim to be regarded as an 

 authority on the subject of heredity, it is asserted 

 that "heredity influences cerebral haemorrhage 

 entirely through the arteries. ""•■■ 



To a family like this the expression of Professor 

 Raymond, of Paris, is particularly applicable where 

 he refers to certain " nervous diseases . . showing 

 the bad quality of certain parts of the nervous 

 system as a hereditary malformation, total or par- 

 tial, of the cerebro-spinal axis, ""f It would seem that 

 such nervous diseases and conditions are due to a 

 primary constitutional vulnerability of the cerebro- 

 spinal axis, and that this defective condition of the 

 central nervous system is invariably transmitted to 

 few or many of the descendants. In considering this 

 pedigree it must be remembered that it contains 

 individuals of whom nothing is known. They are 



* Osier, Principles and Practice of Medicine, ed. 6, 1906, p. 966. 

 t British Medical Journal, July 4th, 1908, p. 7. 



