MINOR-BRACHYDACTYLY. No. 2. 

 By H. DRINKWATER, M.D., F.KS. (Edin.), F.L.S. 



In September 1911, at a Meeting of the International Conference 

 of Genetics, held in Paris, I gave an account of a family showing 

 an inherited abnormality, which I termed Minor-Brachydactyly, to 

 distinguish it from a more marked defect of the same kind, termed 

 Brachydactyly, described previously \ The account of the Minor- 

 Brachydactyly family was also published in the Jouryial of Genetics, 

 Vol. II. Part I, February 1912. More recently, owing to the courtesy 

 of my friend Dr F. Drinkwater of Llangollen, I have been able to study 

 another family showing the Minor-Brachydactylous condition. So 

 closely do the two families resemble one another, as regards this 

 abnormality, that one cannot help thinking they must have arisen 

 from a common stock, though the connection cannot now be traced, 

 and as far as the records go back there is no blood-relationship between 

 them. 



The most marked peculiarities in each family are the shortness of 

 the digits (fingers and toes), and the shortness of stature. 



As a full description was given in the accounts already referred to, 

 it will only be necessary in this paper, to draw attention to the main 

 features. 



In the Brachydactyly family, the abnormality in the fingers was 

 shown to consist in a marked shortening of the middle phalanx, which 

 in the adult was found to be united to the terminal one : so that the 

 finger has two bones instead of the normal three. The length of the 

 finger was found to be about half the normal length. 



In the Minor-Brachydactyly family there is also a shortening of the 

 digits, but to a smaller extent and due to the same abortive condition 



1 Acconnt of a Brachydactylous Family, Proc. Roy. Soc. of Edin. Vol. xxviii. Part 1. 



