RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS. 233 



A case is reported " of the total absence of the 

 uterus in three out of five daughters in the same fam- 

 ily." This is supposed to be an instance of collateral 

 inheritance through the males of the family, as it 

 could not, of course, be directly transmitted. 1 



Mr. Sedgwick, on the authority of Dr. Russell, of 

 Birmingham, gives the following case of hereditary 

 obesity, limited to the male sex : " The first is the case 

 of a very stout and flabby man, with copious deposit 

 of fat, and symptoms of fatty heart; he has four 

 brothers and one sister : the sister is thin, while one 

 of his brothers is as large as himself, and the three 

 others are larger ; his father, paternal uncle, and pa- 

 ternal grandfather were large and fat men ; his moth- 

 er was of medium size, and his maternal grandmoth- 

 er was tall and thin. The second case is that of a 

 very stout man, aged twenty years, with a very large 

 amount of subcutaneous fat, and symptoms of a fatty 

 heart ; he has had ten brothers and sisters, of whom 

 only two brothers and two sisters are living ; the two 

 brothers are even fatter and heavier than he is, while 

 the two sisters are of only medium size; his father 

 was, as a young man, always very fat, and other male 

 relations in the family are also large-made and fat." a 



" A sporting-dog, the issue of a setter mother and 

 a spaniel father, was coupled with a setter bitch, and 

 the male offspring were spaniels, like the paternal 

 grandfather, and resembled him in their hair, while 



1 British Medical Journal, October 5, 1861, p. 359; as quoted by 

 Sedgwick, loc. tit., p. 171. 



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

 168. 



11 



