RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS. 223 



it, though not to the same extent ; and his father, pa- 

 ternal uncles, paternal grandfather, and seven male 

 cousins on the paternal side, have all been similarly 

 affected ; the disease, strictly limited to the males, usu- 

 ally appeared in all of them at puberty, and disap- 

 peared about the age of forty or forty-five years ; while 

 the females of the family, although not suffering from 

 it themselves, have transmitted it to their male chil- 

 dren. Atavism through the opposite sex occurred 

 when females intervened to check its direct transmis- 

 sion to males." ] 



This disease of the skin is not, however, confined to 

 males, and cases are recorded in which it has been lim- 

 ited in a family to females. Mr. Sedgwick, in his re- 

 marks on color-blindness, says : " An analysis of upward 

 of two hundred cases shows that the proportion of 

 males affected is nine-tenths of the whole. But as I 

 had occasion to state with reference to the same point 

 in ichthyosis, this apparent preference for the male 

 sex is not due to any peculiar inaptitude in the female 

 sex to the defect ; for when it has primarily affected 

 the latter, its sexual limitation is complete, as in the 

 interesting case published by Mr. Cunier, where the 

 defect occurred in thirteen individuals belonging to 

 five generations of one family, all of whom were fe- 

 males." 2 



Ribot remarks that " the resemblance between par- 

 ents and children may undergo such metamorphoses 

 as shall cause the child to resemble at one time the 



1 British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review, April, 1863, p. 449. 

 8 Ibid., April, 1861, p. 253 ; " Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiol- 

 ogy," vol. iv., p. 1454. 



