A STATISTICAL SUGGESTION 



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certain facts connected with the so-called transmission of 

 syphilis. 



This view did not, however, commend itself to Darwin, for he 

 says (1868, vol. i. p. 405) : " It is a most improbable hypothesis 

 that the mere blood of one individual should affect the repro- 

 ductive organs of another individual in such a manner as to 

 modify the subsequent offspring." He also points out that this 

 hypothesis would not apply to telegony in birds, which has been 

 alleged, though denied by Harvey and still requiring confirma- 

 tion (Darwin, 1868, vol. i. p. 405). 



It is conceivable that something like the " saturation" above 

 indicated may occur in a case of a poison or protective anti-toxin, 

 which might diffuse in and out. We can imagine that a sire in- 

 fected with some virulent disease, and showing certain structural 

 disturbances associated therewith, may have offspring which are 

 similarly affected, and that the influence from them may pass 

 before their birth into the constitution of the mother, and so 

 affect her that subsequent offspring by a healthy sire are diseased 

 after the manner of the first. But while we have some facts 

 to go upon in regard to the diffusion of toxins and anti-toxins, 

 we have none as yet which justify us in supposing the diffusion 

 of structural characteristics or of representatives of these. 



§ 7. A Statistical Suggestion 



Prof. Karl Pearson (1900, p. 461) has approached the problem 

 from the statistical side. If the female can be influenced at 

 later reproductions by a male who has been associated with her 

 in earlier ones, and if the alleged telegony is not due to some 

 abnormal persistence of the spermatozoa of earlier unions, then 

 in the permanent union of a pair we ought to find an increasing 

 influence of the paternal type. But there seems to be, as regards 

 stature, no evidence of any increase in the " hereditary influence " 



