THE PROBLEMS OF HEREDITY.^ 



By Dr. E. Apekt,* 



Principal at Andral Hospital, Parift. Secretary General of La Society frangaise 



(VEugenique. 



It is my pleasure to address yon, ladies, on a most attractive sub- 

 ject — heredity. "N^Hiat is more interesting than to study a child's 

 physical, intellectual, and moral resemblance to either of its parents 

 (direct heredity), to its more or less remote ancestors (atavic hered- 

 ity), or to its uncles, aunts, male or female cousins (collateral hered- 

 ity) ? What is more enthusing than to search out the reason why and 

 how this resemblance is brought about? And yet it was with some 

 hesitancy that I accepted an invitation to speak to you on this subject. 

 I feared to impose upon you, at least in the second part of my ad- 

 dress, some difficult, abstnise, mathematical explanations, compelling 

 me to put before you some rather formidable looking algebraic sym- 

 bols, which Avill demand your closest attention. If I consent to talk 

 to you of heredity, as I have been obliged to do for a dozen years, it 

 certainly would not do for me to tell you of curious and amusing 

 facts without giving other explanations than unverified theories. We 

 are beyond that, and you would have me at once make you acquainted 

 with recent advances; the result of experimental studies on animals 

 and plants and their explanation requires a knowledge of natural 

 history ideas and of general biology which I will be obliged to recall 

 to you; but these discoveries are applicable just as much to the 

 human species as to the more humble animals and plants. I will 

 therefore explain them to you in detail. 



I would, perhaps, have passed over in silence that most difficult 

 part of the subject if I had been called to speak before a frivolous 

 worldly audience. But I have before me here an assembly of the 

 very highest type. I know that you are ladylike women who do not 

 wish a lecturer to divert or amuse you, but to instruct you. You 

 come here to acquire knowledge which will enable you to be useful to 

 all, to your surroundings, to your neighbors, to your country. Every 

 day you prove that you do not fear the trouble you take. It is not 

 much to exact a little attention from you, since you do not dread the 



1 Translated by permission, with author's revision, from Revue Scientlfiqne, Paris, July 

 12, 1913. 



2 Lecture before •' rUnion des Femmes de France" (French Ited (rossi. 



397 



