INHERITED MUTILATIONS. 107 



is that the epilepsy and the inherited injuries are 

 not directly transmitted, but that " what is 

 transmitted is the morbid state of the nervous 

 system." He thinks that the missing toes may 

 "possibly" be exceptions to this conclusion, 

 " but the other facts only imply the transmission 

 of a morbid state of the sympathetic or sciatic 

 nerve or of a part of the medulla oblongata." 

 Until we can tell what is transmitted, we are not 

 in a position to determine whether there is any 

 true inheritance or only an exaggerated simula- 

 tion of it under peculiar circumstances. When the 

 actual observers believe that the mutilations and 

 epilepsy are not the cause of their own repetition, 



period commenced "perhaps two months or more after birth," while 

 the loss of toes had occurred before birth. In no case, as Weismann 

 points out, is the original mutilation of the nervous system ever trans- 

 mitted. Even where an extirpated ganglion was never regenerated 

 in the parent, the offspring always regained the part in an apparently 

 perfect condition. On the whole the conflicting results ought to be 

 as puzzling to those who may attribute them to a universal tendency 

 to inherit the exact condition of parents as they are to those who, like 

 myself, are sceptical as to the existence of such a law or tendency. 



