1 84 E VOL UTION AND DISEASE. 



The slit, marked F in the sketch, in the mother's pinna 

 was made subsequent to the accident, so as to enable 

 her to wear an ear ornament. 



Reference to the drawings in fig. 96, illustrating the 

 development of the pinna, would show that the defect in 

 the son may be reasonably attributed to feeble develop- 

 ment and incomplete union of the tubercles for the 

 lobule and antitragus. 



The facts relative to malformations of the pinna have 

 been considered in detail, for they serve to indicate the 

 extreme care it is necessary to exercise before we regard 

 a defect in the offspring as due to the transmission of an 

 acquired defect in the parent. In Schmidt's example, 

 the conclusion at which he arrived, independently of our 

 knowledge of the mode by which the pinna is developed, 

 is clearly not in accord with the facts of the case, but in 

 the example where the child was born with a perforation 

 in the lobule, without a knowledge of the embryology of 

 the pinna, it would have seemed unreasonable to doubt 

 but that we had to deal with the inheritance of an 

 acquired defect. 



The facts considered in relation to acquired defects of 

 the pinna are of importance in connection with the 

 subject of the transmission of mutilations. It appears 

 that, immediately on the announcement of the evolution 

 theory, those who were antagonistic urged that the 

 practice of docking the tails of such animals as horses 

 and sheep for so many generations should have produced 

 animals with short tails. The Hebrew custom of cir- 

 cumcision is as necessary now as in the time of Moses. 

 To these may be added the habit of piercing the lobe of 



