44 Heredity. 



mitted by heredity. But, unfortunately, we can study them only 

 under the specific form. There, however, there is no room for 

 doubt, for heredity transmits them all without exception. 



In the human species, savage races have a characteristic 

 acuteness of smell which allies them to animals. In North 

 America the Indians can follow their enemies or their game by 

 the scent, and in the Antilles the maroon negroes distinguish 

 by the scent a white man's trail from a negro's. 1 The whole 

 negro race has this sense developed to an extraordinary degree. 

 Whether this results from a great development of the olfactive 

 membrane, or from the more frequent exercise of this sense, in any 

 case, this innate or acquired faculty is preserved by heredity. 



The specific and individual varieties of taste are transmissible, 

 like those of smell. Hybridism gives curious examples of this 

 among animals. ' The swine,' says Burdach, ' has a very strong 

 liking for barley; the wild boar will not touch it, feeding on 

 herbage and leaves. From a cross between a domestic sow and a 

 wild boar come young some of which have an aversion for barley, 

 like the wild boar, while the others have a taste for it, like the 

 common hog/ 



In man, anaesthesia of taste, and antipathy for certain flavours, 

 are hereditary. Schook, the author of a treatise entitled De 

 Aversione Casei belonged to a family to nearly all the members of 

 which the smell of cheese was unendurable, and some of whom 

 were thrown into convulsions by it. 2 Such antipathy is very often 

 hereditary. ' In a family of our acquaintance, the father and 

 mother like cheese ; the grandmother had an extreme dislike for it. 

 Four of the children share in the same dislike.' 3 



An exclusive liking for vegetable food and repugnance to flesh 

 is of very rare occurrence, but it is transmissible. ' A soldier of 

 the Engineers, who derived from his father an invincible repug- 

 nance to all food composed of animal substances, was unable, 

 during the 18 months he spent with his regiment, to overcome 

 this aversion, and was obliged to quit the service.' 4 



Finally, P. Lucas, following Zimmermann and Gall, gives the 



1 Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicates. Art. 'Odorat.' 8 Ibid. 



3 Lucas, i. 389. 4 Gazette des Tribunaux, 21 Mai, 1844. 



