VIII.] SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OF MUTILATIONS. 455 



margin of the ear is very broad in the mother, in the son it 

 is quite pointed; the so-called crura anthelkis are normally 

 developed in the mother, in the son they can hardly be dis- 

 tinguished and open in an anterior direction, while in the 

 mother they are directed upwards. The concha itself, the 

 incisura intertragica, in short everything in the two cars, is as 

 different as it can possibly be in the ears of two individuals. 



But this fact obviously proves that the son does not possess 

 the ear of his mother, but probably that of his father or grand- 

 father. Unfortunately the father and grandfather have been 

 now dead for a long time, so that we cannot obtain certain 

 evidence upon this point. At all events, the son does not 

 possess the ear of his mother, and it would be very rash to 

 suppose that he has inherited the ear from the father, but the 

 malformation of the ear-lobe from the mother — a malformation 

 which, as it seems to me, is certainly quite different from that 

 of his mother's ear. I said that this case was of fundamental 

 importance chiefly because it shows very distinctly, on the one 

 hand, how difficult it is to bring together the material which is 

 absolutely necessary for the correct understanding of a single 

 case, and on the other hand, how carefully the abnormalities 

 must be compared and examined if we wash to escape wrong 

 conclusions. Such precautions have hitherto been rarely 

 taken with the necessary accuracy; people are in most cases 

 satisfied with the knowledge that an abnormality is present in 

 the child on the same part which had been malformed by muti- 

 lation in the parent. 



But if we are to speak of the transmission of a mutilation, it 

 must be shown, before everything else, that the malformation of 

 the child corresponds precisely to the mutilation of the parent. 



For this reason the older observations upon this subject arc, 

 in most cases, entirely valueless. 



The readiness with which we may be deceived is shown by 

 the fact that I myself nearly became a victim during the past 

 year (1888). A friend of mine, in order to convince me of the 

 transmission of mutilations, called my attention to a linear scar 

 on his left ear, which extended from the upper margin of the 

 helix for some distance upon the posterior part of the anthclix, 

 giving it the appearance of a small, rather sharp ridge. The 

 scar had been caused by a cut from a duelling sword, which the 



