MONSTROSITIES 303 



Man may have occurred all of a sudden as a monstrosity, and then 

 may have been inherited and perpetuated. 1 If hairlessness of 

 body happened to carry with it a correlative development of the 

 brain, with superior intelligence, the hairless race would have 

 eventually killed out the hairy ones. And now we get the hairy 

 Ainos, either as reversions, or as vestiges of a character which 

 probably was normal in remote times, the Burmese hairy family, 

 and the Russian ' homme chien,' being atavic anomalies. 



That the nervous system has a great deal to do with hairiness 

 is shown by the case quoted by M. Guinard (p. I55) 2 of a woman 

 whose trunk became hairy during each pregnancy, and lost its 

 hairy coat in the intermediate periods. 



This is analogous to what happens in animals when a change 

 of season and other external conditions, acting on the nerve 

 centres, bring about a change of coat and plumage. 



Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire considered that the indispensable 

 condition for the transmission of a monstrosity is that the re- 

 productive organs should be intact. Who can tell how many 

 monstrosities which have occurred in geological periods had 

 answered to this condition ? 



M. Guinard (p. 19) 2 says : ' Ce ne sont pas les anomalies graves 

 qui se transmettent le plus souvent, mais les simples vice de 

 conformation.' 



This is only natural, for if the * anomalies graves ' affect the 

 organs of reproduction, there can be no chance of their being trans- 

 mitted. It is perfectly conceivable that anomalies, which in 

 geological periods could not be inherited, died out with the 

 anomalous individuals. These, for all we know, might have been 

 numerous, and in cases where only one fossil anomaly is traceable 



1 The Yahgans of Fuegia are hairless, and wear no clothes. They are exposed to the 

 crudest of climates, and yet do not become extinct. Their extreme sensitiveness to slight 

 warmth is testified to by Darwin. 2 Op. tit. 



