16 THE BREEDING PROBLEM. 



which the alterations resulted from an injury to the restiform body, near the 

 nib of the calamus. 



5t.h. Absence of two toes out of the three of the hind leg, and sometimes 

 all three, in animals whose parents had eaten ttieir hind-leg toes, which had 

 become antesthetic from a section of the sciatic nerve, or of that nerve and the 

 crural. 



6th. Appearance of various morbid states of the skin, hair of the neck and 

 fiicc, in animals born of parents having similar alterations in the same parts, 

 produced by injury to the sciatic nerve. 



In regard to these last cases, Brown-Sequard concludes that the sciatic nerve 

 in the congenitally toeless animal has inherited or acquired the power of 

 transmission by passing through all the difterent morbid states which had 

 existed in one or other of the parents, and that this power in the parents was 

 received through the central end of the nerve, from the time of division till 

 after its reunion with the peripheric end. Hence, if this view is correct, it is 

 not simply the power of performing a single action Avhich is inherited, but 

 that of performing a series of actions at a proper time, and in their proper 

 order. In my opinion, what is most likely transmitted, in nearly if not all 

 cases of hereditary transmission, is the morbid or peculiar state of the nervous 

 system. Therefore, when we consider how closely the moral is related to tlic 

 nervous system, we are not so much surprised at the growing tendency to 

 recurrence of nervous or mental diseases — those states which so imperiously 

 demand narcotics and stimulants — as also at the remarkable liercditary ten- 

 dency to crime and pauperism. In a paper recently read before the New York 

 Charities Aid Association, by Dr. Harris, a most remarkable instance of 

 the hereditary transmission of crime, etc., was presented in the case of the 

 wonum Margaret. Attention was first called to it from the fact that a certain 

 county in Northern New York contained so large a percentage of criminals 

 and paupers — it having been officially reported that one-tenth of the entire 

 population were of these two classes. Upon investigation, for the purpose of 

 determining the cause of this state of affairs, it was found that, niore than 

 seventy years ago, a girl, having no other name than that of Margaret, first 

 made her appearance in that region, nothing being known of her ancestors. 

 She was a vagrant at an early age. There being no poor-house in the county 

 at which she could be kept, she roamed through the country, begging from 

 neighbors and others, never having a home, nor receiving an education nor 

 any proper instruction. At an early age she began to bear children — illegiti- 

 mate, of course — who became paupers, like herself. Since that time, about nine 

 hundred descendants have been traced to this outcast woman. Of this prog- 

 eny more than two hundred stand recorded as ci-iminals, and a large number 

 of the remainder are known to be idiots, lunatics and drunkards. Virtue was 

 unknown to any of them of either sex. In one generation tlicre were twenty 

 children, three of whom died young; of tlie remaining seventeen, nine were 

 criminals, liaving been sent to Slate prisons for aggregate terms of fifty years, 

 and the rest were almost constant inmates of jails, prisons and alm.s-houses. 



Animals Avhich have accjuired certain peculiar qualities, or perfection of 

 senses, through habit or training, or both, possess the poAver of transmitting 



