1 68 Inheritance of Acquired Characters 



there appeared just such a muscular atrophy of the thigh 

 and of the leg. 135 



The desperate endeavor which Weismann has made 

 to refute the results of these experiments, at least in 

 relation to the transmissibility of epilepsy, is well known, 

 objecting that this affection was due only to an infection 

 innoculated in the parents after operation and so trans- 

 mitted to the germ. Brown Sequard has signally over- 

 come this objection by showing that epilepsy is not 

 produced by all nerve sections but only by some, and 

 that further it can be provoked also by the simple crush- 

 ing of the sciatic nerve without any breaking of the skin, 

 and this would exclude the possibility of any infection 

 whatever. 



Nevertheless it is necessary to recognize the fact that 

 these experiments, while they undoubtedly demonstrate 

 the inheritance of the effects of certain lesions, are not 

 enough to produce a firm and general conviction of the 

 inheritance of acquired characters among the numerous 

 naturalists and biologists who are in no wise blind fol- 

 lowers of Weismann's theories; perhaps because what 

 is inherited in these cases is always somewhat morbid 

 and abnormal. In short the determination of the ques- 

 tion requires certain proof of the inheritance of definite 

 normal peculiarities acquired by functional adaptation. 



We see then, that whoever proposes systematically 

 to hunt out a weak point in every fact adduced in support 

 of the Lemarckian principle, by which its value as proof 

 can be shaken, can usually if not always find it. But 



185 Brown Sequard: Faits nouveaux etablissant 1'extreme fre- 

 quence de la transmission, par heredite, d'etats organiques morbides, 

 produits accidentellement chez des ascendants. Comptes Rendus de 

 1'Acad. der Sciences. T. XCIV, No. 11, March 13, 1882. P. 697700. 



