CHAPTER III 



INHERITANCE OF PHYSICAL CHARACTERS 



IN MAN 



Stature 



Two of the earliest subjects studied in connection 

 with human heredity were naturally enough stature 

 and eye-colour. Galton dealt with these traits in his 

 Natural Inheritance. I have pointed out elsewhere 

 (191 4) that Galton was a believer both in continuity 

 and discontinuity in variation, and also in alterna- 

 tive as well as blended inheritance. His point of 

 view with regard to the inheritance of these two 

 characters may be well illustrated by a quotation 

 from Natural Inheritance (p. 138): "Stature and 

 eye-colour are not different as qualities, but they 

 are more contrasted in hereditary behaviour than 

 perhaps any other common qualities. Parents of 

 different statures usually transmit a blended heritage 

 to their children, but parents of different eye-colour 

 usually transmit an alternative heritage." He also 

 remarks (p. 139), " The blending in stature is due 

 to its being the aggregate of the quasi-independent 

 inheritance of many separate parts, while e3^e-colour 

 appears to be much less various in its origin." In- 

 stead of Galton's conception of particulate inheritance, 

 we now think in terms of such abstractions as multiple 

 allelomorphs or multiple factors. But this conclusion 

 of his concerning stature has been supported by 

 Davenport (191 7), who concludes from a considerable 

 aggregation of analysed data that the correlation 



between " knee height " and " pubic arch minus knee 



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