INTRODUCTION xix 



He admits that inherited immunity is rare, but says 

 that it has occasionally been noted. Here we have 

 again merely the same influence, chemical in this case, 

 acting simultaneously on somatic cells and germ- 

 cells, which is not the inheritance of acquired char- 

 acters at aU. Adami remarks that Weismann 

 would make the somewhat subtle distinction that 

 the toxins produce these results not by acting on 

 the body-ceUs but by direct action on the germ-cells, 

 that the inheritance is blastogenic not somatogenic, 

 and calls this ' a sorry and almost Jesuitic play 

 upon words.' On the contrary, it is the essential 

 point, which Adami fails to appreciate. However, 

 he goes further and refers to endogenous intoxica- 

 tion, to disturbed states of the constitution, due to 

 disturbances in glandular activity or to excess of 

 certain internal secretions. Such disturbances he 

 says, acting on the germ-ceUs, would be truly soma- 

 togenic. In the case of gout he considers that defect 

 in body metabolism has led to intoxication of the 

 germ-cells, and the offspring show a peculiar liability 

 to be the subjects of intoxications of the same order. 

 Now, however important these views and conclusions 

 may be from the medical point of view, in relation to 

 the heredity of general physiological or pathological 

 conditions, they throw no light on the problems 

 considered by myself and other biologists — namely, 

 the origin of species and of structural adaptations. 



There is no mention anywhere in Adami' s short 

 paper of the evolution or heredity of structural 

 characters or adaptations such as wing of Bird or Bat, 

 lung of Frog, asymmetry of Flat-fish or of specific 

 characters, still less of secondary sexual characters, 

 which formed the basis of the hormone theory in my 

 1908 paper. He does not even consider the evolu- 



