302 



NA TURE 



[July 28, 1892 



advantageous. The idea was present in Sir John Sinclair's 

 famous " Statistical Account," but has had no recent or adequate 

 embodiment. 



The Scottish Geographical Magazine for July contains a 

 translation by Mr. C. E. D. Black of M. Dauvergne's recent jour- 

 ney in the Pamirs, the original paper appearing simultaneously 

 in the Bulletin of the Paris Geographical Society. The journey 

 carried out in 1889-90 was a most successful one and opened up 

 some new ground. The geographical results are summed up in 

 four sentences : — (i) That there is another great chain running 

 parallel to the Kuen Lun and facing Kashgaria. (2) That the 

 river in the Tung valley is an affluent of the Zarafshan, not of 

 the Taghdumbash. (3) That the Oxus rises in the great 

 glaciers of the Hindu Kush at 37° 10' N. and 75° E. (4) That 

 the Karambar valley, although difficult, is practicable for 

 ponies. 



Dr. Theodor Menke, one of the best known of German 

 historical geographers, died in Gotha in May last. His work in 

 the compilation of atlases of historical geography was exception- 

 ally thorough. His first work in this direction was a popular 

 school atlas of classical geography, entitled " Orbis Antiqui 

 Descriptio " ; but his most important contribution to cartography 

 was his edition of Spruner's great historical atlas, begun in 1858 

 and completed in 1879. 



Dr. Stuhlmann, according to a telegraphic report in the 

 Times, has furnished additional particulars of Emin Pasha's 

 expedition, although no more recent news. The real and only 

 aim of Emin's journey to the Equatorial province, was to rescue 

 those of his former subordinates, whose vacillation and delays 

 kept them from joining Stanley's march to the coast. It was 

 then his purpose to make his way across Africa to Adamawa and 

 the Cameroons, a purpose which, as we already know, he had to 

 abandon. It is satisfactory to learn that Dr. Stuhlmann had 

 with him at Bukoba all the valuable scientific records and collec- 

 tions of the expedition. 



The current number of Petermamt's Mitteilungen calls atten- 

 tion to a curious literary fraud to which in the two previous 

 numbers it fell a victim, and from which many geographical 

 journals in the habit of faithfully reproducing the articles of 

 Petermann also suffer. A Dr. Ceyp professed to have made a 

 journey recently in south-eastern Persia, and communicated to 

 Petermann a detailed account of it, which now appears to have 

 been copied verbatim from a little-known work, " Gasteiger- 

 Khans," reprinted from the " Boten fiir Tirol und Vorarlberg," 

 1881. General Houtum Schindler, of Teheran, who knew that 

 Ceyp's Persian travels had not led him beyond that city, gave 

 the information which led to this discovery. The episode fur- 

 nishes a fresh proof of the necessity for the great caution in 

 accepting the records of unknown travellers which has always 

 been exercised by the leading English authorities. 



THE BEARING OF PATHOLOGY UPON THE 

 DOCTRINE OF THE TRANSMISSION OF 

 ACQUIRED CHARACTERS. 



"POR more than two years the English public has been in pos- 

 -*- session of an excellent translation of sundry of Weismann's 

 more important essays.^ The object of this paper is not to 

 expound Weissmann's views generally. That office has already 

 been undertaken by the persons best qualified to perform it.'- 

 We propose merely to discuss one of his topics under a single 

 aspect— the "Transmission of Acquired Characters" in its 

 relations to pathology. 



We cannot, however, avoid reviewing some of the leading 

 points in Weismann's system which bear upon our immediate 

 topic. 



At the root of the matter lies the all-important distinction 

 between reproductive and somatic cells. Saving among the 

 lowest forms of animal life, an organism may be regarded as 

 made up of two parts. There are the reproductive cells. With 

 these the future of the species lies. They are the visible basis 

 of its perpetuity. The remaining tissues of the body are styled 

 "somatic." It is natural to us to think of the "somatic" 



J Translation edited by E. B. Poulton, Schonland, and Shipley. 

 ^ Prof. Moseley's two articles in Nature, vols, xxxiii. and xxxiv. Dis- 

 cussion introduced by Prof. Lankester at the meeting of the British Associa- 



NO. II 87, VOL. 46] 



tissues as something higher and nobler than the reproductive 

 cells — to contrast the simplicity of the latter in structure and en- 

 dowment with the intricacy of the former. But there is another 

 point of view, which inverts matters ; which regards the somatic 

 tissues — the body and its manifold endowments — simply as a sort 

 of living case or appendage of the reproductive cells. The re- 

 productive cells look after the perpetuity of the species, the 

 somatic cells look after the reproductive cells. 



Now, if we travel back to the simplest forms of animal life, 

 we lose sight of this distinction. The principle of diffisrentiation 

 of labour is not yet recognized. Among the Protozoa the dis- 

 tinction between reproductive and somatic cells has no place. 

 Every part of the organism has it in its power to reproduce the 

 entire organism. No special material is reserved to serve the 

 purposes of reproduction. As we ascend in the scale of animal 

 life, differentiation of labour begins. There is from the outset 

 a reservation of reproductive cells, which serve as the demon- 

 strable links between successive generations of organisms. But 

 in sundry of the highest forms of animal life a third condition 

 obtains. There is at the outset no reservation of cells : differ- 

 entiation overtakes the entire organism— there is no exemption. 



Not till the close of embryonic life do the reproductive cells 

 appear, and when they do so it is as the offspring of somatic 

 cells. This third condition was felt by Weismann as a difficulty, 

 and led to an important modification in his terminology. The 

 problem he had to explain was this, How can cells which have 

 apparently lost their reproductive characters afterwards regain 

 them ? The solution he found was that the differentiation under- 

 gone by certain cells was never in reality thoroughgoing enough 

 to deprive them of their original characters. Sooner or later, a 

 moment arrives at which the original " germ-plasm " becomes 

 again predominant. Instead, then, of in "germ-cells," the 

 basis of perpetuity of the species is laid in " germ-plasm." ^ 



We have now to consider the bearing of these views upon the 

 doctrine of the transmission of acquired characters. 



It is of the utmost importance to understand precisely what 

 Weismann means by the term "acquired character." Acquired 

 characters are opposed to original characters. To grasp the 

 distinction we are sent back to a time before the distinction 

 between reproductive and somatic cells existed. The cha- . 

 racters already present at this early period are original characters. 

 Later on, the reproductive and somatic cells part company, to 

 follow separate careers of their own. It is the somatic cells — 

 the body — which comes chiefly into collision with the environ- 

 ment, and in doing so undergoes various modifications. Now 

 these modifications are the "acquired characters" the trans- 

 missibility of which Weismann denies. 



They may be something purely local, as a scar or a mutilation. 

 They may be something which involves the modification of com- 

 plex musculo-nervous mechanisms, as in delicate manipulations 

 and tricks of skill, such as violin-playing. Now, how is it con- 

 ceivable, he argues, that such specific changes in the somatic 

 tissues should influence the reproductive cells in the same direc- 

 tion ? Whether they influence them at all is not the matter in 

 dispute. That they do this is not only conceivable, but highly 

 probable. But how can the somatic cells stamp their own 

 special characters upon the reproductive cells ? 



We now turn to the main topic of this paper. Has pathology 

 anything to say, either for or against, the transmissibility of 

 acquired characters ? 



Now, as to the transmissibility of sundry forms of disease 

 there is no question. That pathological characters are trans- 

 mitted is universally allowed. The difficulty, however, is to 

 decide whether such characters were really acquired, in the strict 

 sense in which Weismann uses the term. We shall find that it 

 will require considerable care to adduce instances which are 

 really appropriate. With this preliminary caution we may pro- 

 ceed to attempt some sort of preliminary classification of our 

 pathological data. We shall find that they fall, roughly, into 

 three main groups : — 



(i) Morbid characters which are obviously acquired by the 

 organism, and as obviously transmitted. But since they are in 

 no sense the acquisition of the somatic cells as such, but of the 

 entire organism — somatic and reproductive cells alike — they 

 cannot be allowed to "rank." 



(2) Morbid characters in which an element of transmissions 

 is obvious, but where a closer investigation reveals the fact that, 

 supposing them to have been acquired, in Weismann's sense of 



' See Weismann's essay on " Foundation of a Theory of Heredity,'* 

 passim. 



