138 



DISCOVERY 



a book which supplies a -very definite need. Medical 

 students will find this book admirable for their purposes, 

 and the references to fuller expositions of the questions 

 dealt with will be of considerable assistance to those 

 more advanced in a science from which a great deal is 

 to be hoped for in the years to come. 



Heredity in Poultry. By Regix.^ld Crundall Punnett, 

 F.R.S. (Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1923, 10.';.) 



The importance of Mendel's work on heredity and his 

 discovery of the simple laws governing the transmission 

 of inherited characteristics in certain plant forms has 

 perhaps not been sufficiently appreciated b)' the world 

 at large. Professor Punnett was one of the first to 

 realise the potentialities of these investigations, and by 

 his untiring w-ork over a number of years has proved 

 conclusively that the same general laws govern heredity 

 in animal life. Working with poultry, by selective breed- 

 ing and careful observation, he has sho\\-n that such 

 characters as plumage, colour, broodiness, and egg- 

 production (to mention but a few) are inherited strictly 

 on lilendehan lines. It would seem at first sight that 

 research of this type were largely of academic interest ; 

 but we are shown by the author how the economic value 

 of these researches is aheady recognised by poultry 

 breeders. Breeding hitherto has been purely empirical. 

 With a knowledge of these laws it is now possible to 

 ensure the preservation of breeds of maximum fecundity ; 

 and there is great promise that in time the dishearten- 

 ing results of empirical breeding will be altogether 

 avoided. 



Professor Punnett confines himself modestly to the 

 practical and economic value of his work to the poultry 

 industry. May we point out that the laws governing 

 vegetable and animal life are also those that apply to 

 our owTi, the Human Species ? So many of the diseases 

 and handicaps of the individual man depend obviously 

 on inherited constitution ; and we should like to look upon 

 this research as part of a field of large scope — the study 

 of the laws which govern the preservation of the healthiest 

 and most stable qualities of Human Body and Mind. 



A. C. MOWLE. 



Tlie Evolution and Progress of Mankind. By Professor 

 Herm.\nx Klaatsch, M.D. Edited and enlarged 

 by Professor Adolf Heilbron, M.D. Translated 

 by Joseph McCabe. (T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., 255. 

 net.) 



It must be obvious to all those who venture into the 

 fascinating labyrinths of anthropology that it suffers 

 in one extreme of its investigations from too much 

 information, and at the other extreme from too little. 

 Of very ancient man we know all but nothing ; whereas 

 with regard to modern man, each race, if not each indi- 

 vidual, presents its separate quota of matter for surmise 

 and classification. 



Yet the trite quotation " The greatest study of mankind 

 is man " remains apt ; and curiosity as to how man, 

 " in form how like an angel, in imagination how like a 



god," achieved his eminence will alwavs seek to be 

 satisfied. And here is a book which will go some way, 

 at least, in doing so. " The Evolution and Progress of 

 Mankind " would be a gigantic subject even for Mr. H. G. 

 Wells, and obviously the three hundred odd pages of 

 this book have not included all that maj^ be said on the 

 subject. In point of fact, the book may be divided into 

 three sections — a consideration of the antliropoid apes, 

 a most interesting account of the AustraUan aborigine, 

 and a critical discussion of the all too short series of 

 primitive skulls. In addition, there are paragraphs here 

 and there filled with those curious anecdotes and descrip- 

 tions of primitive habits which anthropologists know 

 well how to produce. 



The reader is soon taught to walk warily in anthropology. 

 Consider that first exciting find — the fragments of a 

 skeleton at Neanderthal in 1856. Virchow, the great 

 German pathologist, thought that they were the remains 

 of a fairly recent man who suSered from rickets and gout. 

 Huxley, for England, said it was of great age ; Professor 

 Mayer, from out the German ranks, retorted that the 

 bones were those of a " Mongolian Cossack of Cherni- 

 choff's army corps of the year 1814." 



The eminent writer of tliis work, in common with 

 practically all anthropologists of to-day, emphatically 

 believed that the bones w^ ■•=■ exceedingly ancient. This 

 belief is founded on the discovery of a series of skulls 

 showing pecuharities similar to those of the Neanderthal 

 celebrity. The argument, imphcit rather than expressed 

 in this book, is that one peculiarly eccentric skull might 

 be explained by its being a sport or a pathological specimen 

 by accident preserved, but that the chance that a series 

 with similar characteristics, all at variance wdth the norm 

 of their fellows, should be preserved and found is a very 

 small one. Add to this that in the main these skulls were 

 found in geological strata of ascertainable age, although, 

 of course, burial, if one is only buried deep enough, might 

 bring one to any geological age whatever. 



There is only one small point. The preservation of 

 a series of abnormal skulls would equally be explained 

 if by virtue of their abnormality they were specially 

 protected against the disintegrating effects of time. 

 Rickets is a disease wliich affects bones, produces bulging 

 frontal eminences, and bends the tliigh-bones in a curve. 

 After cure — for it is a childish ailment — the bones remain 

 abnormally dense, and so more likelj' to survive the ages. 

 " Paget 's disease " is another producing similar changes 

 as regards the bulging forehead, but here the bones get less 

 dense. \'irchow, as we have said, thought that the Nean- 

 derthal man was rachitic — an old sufferer from rickets ; 

 and although he is no\\- contradicted, it is uncomfortably 

 true that Virchow's opinions on 9,ny subject were uncom- 

 monly reliable. There are some who, perhaps, would 

 only be absolutely convinced on the subject of the appear- 

 ance of ancient man by the discovery of a whole graveyard 

 of consistent skeletons. Perhaps even then they would 

 require to be convinced that there was not once a pre- 

 historic hospital for cripples near-by ! In all, it may^ be 

 mentioned, eighteen skulls of supposedly great antiquity 

 are discussed in tliis book, and this small number serves 



