IV CASE OF SHORTENED FINGERS 181 



hand, the first joint of which is particularly slender, and 

 which altogether is somewhat weak. 



As the shortening of the fingers is very similar on both 

 hands, it can scarcely be supposed that it has been derived 



from some injury incurred by an ancestor of Mr. durino- 



life. If the idea of self-mutilation were to suggest itself, it 

 would be at once disposed of by the fact that the general 

 shortening is due to the shortness of the middle finger-joint. 



But comparison with Brown-Sequard's experiment suggests 

 the reflection, whether the ultimate causes of the shorteninc^ 

 or atrophy are not to be sought in some disease, or some 

 injury of the spinal cord in an ancestor. 



Another possibility is that the germ of some ancestor was 

 in some way affected or injured, and such derangements of 

 the germ are certainly very often the causes of congenital 

 defects. In this case, since the shortening of the fingers 

 occurs on both sides, the injury must have affected some of 

 the embryonic cells which take part in the formation of the 

 trophic centres or centres of innervation of the fingers in 

 question. 



On the other hand, how can the first origin of this merely 

 local structural defect be explained by sexual combination ? 

 I confess I am unable to conceive such an explanation, 

 especially as it is not merely a question of a character formed 

 by the greater development of ancestral characters, but cer- 

 tainly to some extent of a pathological atrophy. 



It is known that numerous other instances of the inherit- 

 ance of injuries have been recorded, e.g. inheritance of the 

 artificially shortened tail of a bull, of artificially produced horn- 

 lessness in cattle, many cases of inheritance in man of curva- 

 ture in a finger caused by injury, inheritance of the absence of 

 one eye which had been lost by the father during life by disease, 

 etc. The opponents of the inheritance of acquired characters 

 flatly assert that these statements are unauthenticated stories, 



