106 PRINCIPLES OF STOCK-BREEDING. 



Lille. It appears that several of the deformed beg- 

 gars in Paris had also been born at Lille, and that the 

 effect of the absence of light in these underground 

 places, in producing malformed births, was so notori- 

 ous that the magistrates of Lille issued strict orders to 

 prohibit the poor from taking up their abode in them." * 



Variations frequently occur in particular localities, 

 that cannot be explained on account of the obscure 

 action of the agencies that produce them. Such va- 

 riations are said to be the result of endemic influences, 

 which is a convenient name for local agencies that are 

 not as yet fully understood. 



As an illustration of the obscure action of endemic 

 causes of variation, the following examples are given : 

 In the case of a family which dwelt alternately at 

 Paris and Bordeaux, " the children engendered at 

 Bordeaux were all born deaf-mutes ; the children en- 

 gendered at Paris were all endowed, as their parents, 

 with perfect integrity of hearing. And this endemic 

 influence is still more clearly shown in the case re- 

 corded by Puybonnieux (' Mutisme et Surdite,' p. 30, 

 1846), of a married couple with eight children, of 

 whom five were deaf-mutes; four of these last and 

 two children who could speak were born at Rebre- 

 chien, at a house called Le Jeu de Paume, situated 

 near the forest of Orleans, in a place elevated and ap- 

 parently healthy; nevertheless, the people who had 

 dwelt there before the married couple referred to, had 

 had three children, of whom two were deaf-mutes." 3 



1 Medical Gazette, vol. x., p. 848, 1832 ; quoted by Scdgwick in foot- 

 note, loc. cit., p. 174. 



2 British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, July, 1863, p. 175. 



