THE INHERITANCE OF FAMILY TRAITS 71 



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Fig. 37. — The "poorhouse" type of reproduction of the feeble-minded 

 and epileptic. A lewd, feeble-minded and epileptic woman whose mother 

 was certainly feeble-minded (but of whose father, brothers and sisters noth- 

 ing is known) was the inmate of a county poorhouse. While there she had 

 6 children, of whom 2 died in infancy, 1 died at 18 in the almshouse, 

 2 were feeble-minded and are now living in the almshouse (1 the son of 

 a negro) and 1 was epileptic, the son of a man with a criminal record. (*?, 

 criminalistic; D, dead; E, epileptic; F, feeble-minded; S, syphihtic; Sx, sexO- 

 ally immoral. 



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minded and the talented at opposite extremes of the mental 

 series? Why, then, this resemblance in the inheritance df 

 their traits? Improbable as the result may appear it is 

 precisely that to which students of hereditary genius have 

 come. Says Havelock Ellis: ''We may regard it (genius) as 

 a highly sensitive and complexly developed adjustment of 

 the nervous system along special lines, with concomitant 

 tendency to defect along other Unes. Its elaborate organiza- 

 tion along special hues is often built up on a basis even less 

 highly organized than that of the ordinary average man. 

 It is no paradox to say that the real affinity of genius is with 

 congenital imbecihty rather than insanity." Ellis notes 

 that eminent men are more apt to be eldest or youngest 

 sons. Now this fact is in agreement with the obser\'ation 

 that feeble-minded persons of certain types ("mongoHans,") 

 are more apt to be eldest or youngest children than inter- 

 mediates. This type seems to be caused solely by the defects 



