BLOODGROUPS AND INBREEDING 



M. A. VAN HERWERDEN 



University of Utrecht, Holland 



The nearly 8 millions populating the small country of the Netherlands 

 are for the greater part of mixed origin. It is generally accepted that since 

 the last arctic period invasions from the south and the north, in much later 

 time from the east, intermixed in this small area of western Europe. The 

 rare types of pure nordic race are still to be found in the northwestern part 

 of the country (province of Friesland) and along the western coast, the pur- 

 est alpine types in the southern provinces (especially in the east part of the 

 province of Zeeland and the western part of the province of Brabant). 

 Taking into account that already in prehistoric time, the original settlers 

 themselves have been partially of mixed race and adding these chances of 

 intercrossing in the invaded country — one understands that the Netherland 

 population is for the greater part of mixed alpine and nordic type. By later 

 invasions Saxons and Franks came from the side of Germany, the former 

 importing new mixed elements among which possibly the East-baltic type. 

 The mixture with east-asiatic elements (Malayan from the colonies) in the 

 last three centuries is not to be neglected, neither the increasing mixture 

 with Jews during the last century, though these numbers are very small, 

 compared with the entire population. 



In 1925 an anthropological commission of the Royal Academy of Science 

 resolved to collect anthropological data and promote the anthropological 

 knowledge about the Dutch population. A section for bloodgroup research 

 forming part of this Commission intended to investigate the mean percent- 

 age of the four known blood groups in the Netherlands and to test by local 

 research if there were to be found correlations between the distribution of 

 bloodgroups and other anthropological traits; especially testing if the per- 

 centage of groups A and B showed difference in groups of nordic and alpine 

 dominance. 



The work has been centralised during 5 years in our laboratory. All the 

 agglutination tests have been performed in duplicate by the same two ex- 

 perts. The blood drops have been collected by physicians and medical 

 students. The results of the agglutination proofs were noted independently 

 from the other anthropological data. The data are copied on individual 



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