Alfred Russel Wallace 



furnished me, and which is certainly about as well 

 attested and conclusive as anything can be. The facts are 

 these : 



A gamekeeper had his right forearm amputated at the 

 North Devon Infirmary. He left before it was healed, 

 thinking his wife could dress it, but as she was too nervous, 

 a neighbour, a young recently married woman, a farmer's 

 wife, still living, came and dressed it every day till it 

 healed. About six months after she had a child born with- 

 out right hand and forearm^ the stump exactly correspond- 

 ing in length to that of the gamekeeper. Dr. Eichard 

 Budd, M.D., F.R.C.P.,' of Barnstaple, the physician to 

 the infirmary, when the boy was five or six years old, him- 

 self took a photograph of the boy and the gamekeeper side 

 by side, showing the wonderful correspondence of the two 

 arms. I have these facts direct from Dr. Budd., who was 

 personally cognisant of the whole circumstances. A few 

 years after, in November, 1876, Dr. Budd gave an account 

 of the case and exhibited the photographs to a large meet- 

 ing at the College of Physicians, and I have no doubt it 

 is one of the cases referred to in the article I have quoted, 

 though Dr. Budd thinks it has never been published. It 

 will be at once admitted that this is not a chance coinci- 

 dence, and that all theoretical difficulties must give way 

 to such facts as this. ... Of course it by no means follows 

 that similar causes should in all cases produce similar 

 effects, since the idiosyncrasy of the mother is no doubt 

 an important factor; but where the combined coincidences 

 are so numerous as in this case — place, time, person and 

 exact correspondence of resulting deformity — some causal 

 relation must exist. — Believe me yours very truly, 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



* A member of a family which has produced several eminent medical men. 



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