PREPOTENCY IN CHARACTERS. 63 



characters that we must look for the most convincing 

 proof of the theory that a character gains prepotency 

 with age. Here we do at times find cases to support 

 the theory, but it is amongst those less grave characters 

 which, while unmistakably marked, do not so rapidly 

 go to the extinction of the family that we must find 

 our strongest proof, among such characters as hare-lip, 

 cleft-palate, club-foot, squint, cataract, supernumerary 

 fingers or toes, colour-blindness, premature baldness 

 or greyness, deaf-mutism, stammering, plurality of 

 births, the hsemorrhagic diathesis (bleeders), spina 

 bifida, and the like ; or, on the other hand, where the 

 character is physiological. Instances of repeated trans- 

 mission of any or all of the above-mentioned characters 

 can be found everywhere around, and, doubtless, cases 

 will present themselves to the mind of the reader. 

 It is possible such imperfections may appear in a 

 family in which they have never appeared before, 

 but, in such cases, if the individual bearing the 

 character marry one having no tendency to such char- 

 acters, the acquired imperfection will not appear in 

 the next, or in succeeding generations. In all families 

 in which these abnormal developments are regularly 

 transmitted, inquiry will elicit the fact that the char- 

 acter has appeared regularly in the family as far 

 back as there is any record of the family. A very 

 good case in point is that recorded by Dr. W. C. Grigg.* 

 He says " I was consulted by a Mrs. M. B., a Wiltshire 

 woman, aged forty-four, who gave me this history 



* Brit. Med. Journal, 8th March 1890. 



