106 ARE THE EFFECTS OF USE INHERITED ? 



are said to be repeated with striking accuracy of 

 detail in the young who inherit mutilated toes '; 

 but as epilepsy is often due to some one exciting 

 cause or morbid condition, the single transmission 

 of a highly morbid condition of the system might 

 easily reproduce the whole chain of consequences 

 and might also have caused the loss of toes. 



The particulars of the guinea-pig cases are 

 very inadequately recorded, 1 but the results are so 

 anomalous 2 that Brown-Sequard's own conclusion 



1 Hence perhaps Mr. Spencer's error in representing the 

 epileptic liability as permanent and as coming on after healing 

 (Factors of Organic Evolution, p. 27). 



2 It is not claimed that the imperfect foot was on the same side of 

 the body as in the parent, and where parents had lost all the toes 

 of a foot, or the whole foot, the few offspring affected usually had 

 lost only two toes out of the three, or only a part of one or two 

 or three toes. Sometimes the offspring had toes missing on both 

 hind feet, although the parent was only affected in one. One diseased 

 ear and eye in the parent was " generally " or " always " succeeded 

 by two equally affected ears and eyes in the offspring (cf. Pop. 

 Science Monthly, New York, xi. 334). The important law of 

 inheritance at corresponding periods was also set aside. Gangrene 

 or inflammation commenced in both ears and both eyes soon after 

 birth (pointing possibly to infection of some kind) ; the epileptic 



