INHERITANCE TRUE AND FALSE 141 



inherited ; it is an ante-natal acquirement or is of congenital 

 origin. That alone is inherited which is the property of the 

 individual at the moment he becomes an individual, which is 

 a property of the germ plasms from which he originates, or is 

 produced by the interaction of those germ plasms. The biologist 

 has no alternative but to define inheritance according to the 

 principle here laid down, nor have we, dealing with a limited 

 field of biology, the right tq modify terms in general scientific 

 use for our own convenience. 



Now, when we find that syphilis or tuberculosis acquired 

 in utero during the later months is peculiarly severe and wide- 

 spread in its manifestation, it is wholly unjustifiable to premise 

 that the microbic germs of one or other disease could be present 

 in either the conjugating ovum or the spermatozoon, could pass 

 into one or other of the blastomeres, in a latent condition, doing 

 no harm to the developing ovum. The ovum would surely be 

 destroyed or at the least be monstrous. Could it conceivably be 

 present, it is more than debatable whether we could regard 

 such a fortuitous inclusion as a part and portion of the germ 

 plasm, and so a strict inheritance. However, I have already, 

 at the Academy of Medicine in New York, dwelt upon this 

 subject. 1 Suffice it to say that tuberculosis or syphilis of the 

 new-born must from every valid consideration be an acquired 

 congenital condition, not an inheritance. And, let me repeat, 

 only that which is derived from the parental germ plasms is 

 truly inherited. 



It is to the germ plasm, the active matter in the germinal 

 cells, and to the properties of that germ plasm, that we must 

 turn in order to gain our basis for any sound theory for inherit- 

 ance. Weismann has done yeoman's service in emphasizing this 

 fact. This germ plasm it is which conveys living matter from 

 generation to generation. 



Growth and its Essential Nature. — Now, whatever life is, 

 the fundamental phenomenon or possession of living matter is 

 the performance of work coupled with growth — the capacity 

 manifested by that living matter to assimilate non-living matter 

 of certain orders, to absorb it, to endow it with like properties, 

 to convert it into matter like unto itself, into additional living 



1 Adami, " Syphilis and the Liver," New York Medical Journal, April 22, 

 1899. 



