NERVOUS DISORDERS. 39 



parent and child may often display itself in the 

 same organs those probably which are here- 

 ditarily weakest. Acquired diseases or disorders 

 thus appear to be transmitted, when all that was 

 conveyed to the offspring was the exciting cause 

 of a lowered vitality or disordered action, 

 together with the ancestral liability to such 

 diseases under such conditions. 



(4) Francis Galton says that *' it is hard to find 

 evidence of the power of the personal structure 

 to react upon the sexual elements, that is not 

 open to serious objection." Some of the cases 

 of apparent inheritance he regards as coincidence 

 of effect. Thus " the fact that a drunkard will 

 often have imbecile children, although his offspring 

 previous to his taking to drink were healthy,' 

 is an " instance of simultaneous action," and not 

 of true inheritance. " The alcohol pervades his 

 tissues, and, of course, affects the germinal 

 matter in the sexual elements as much as it does 



