"HEREDITY. 



so perpetuated and increased as to become permanent dis- 

 tinctions. 



Of special instances, there are many besides that of the oft 

 en-cited Otter-breed of sheep, descended from a single short 

 legged lamb, and that of the six-fingered Grratio Kelleia, who 

 transmitted his peculiarity in different degrees, to several o( 

 his children and to some of his grandchildren. In a paper con- 

 tributed to the Edinburgh Neio Philosophical Journal for July 

 1863, Dr Struthers gives several cases of hereditary digital 

 variations. Esther P , who had six fingers on one hand, be- 

 queathed this malformation, along some lines of her descend- 

 ants, for two, three, and four generations. A S inherited 

 an extra digit on each hand and each foot from his father ; 

 and C Gr , who also had six fingers and six toes, had an aunt 

 and a grandmother similarly formed. A collection of evidence 

 has been made by Mr Sedgwick, and published by him in the 

 Medico- Chirurgical Review for April and for July 1863, in 

 two articles on " The Influence of Sex in limiting Hereditary 

 Transmission." From these articles are selected the following 

 cases and authorities : Augustin Duforet, a pastry-cook of 

 Douai, who had but two instead of three phalanges to all his 

 fingers and toes, inherited this malformation from his grand- 

 father and father, and had it in common with an uncle and 

 numerous cousins. An account has been given by Dr Lepine, 

 of a man with only three fingers on each hand and four toes 

 on each foot, and whose grandfather and son exhibited the 

 like anomaly. Bechet describes Victoire Barre as a woman 

 who, like her father and sister, had but one developed finger 

 on each hand, and but two toes on each foot, and whose mon- 

 strosity re-appeared in two daughters. And there is a case 

 where the absence of two distal phalanges on the hands was 

 traced for two generations. The various recorded instances 

 in which there has been transmission from one generation to 

 another, of webbed-fingers, of webbed-toes, of hare-lip, of 

 congenital luxation of the thigh, of absent patella, of 

 club-foot, &c., would occupy more space than can here be 



