A NOTE ON INHERITED VARIATIONS AND FITNESS PROBLEMS 



I. The Types of Scapulae 



WILLIAM WASHINGTON GRAVES 



St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 



"Wollen wir weiter kommen so miissen wir genauer intersuchen." — Virchow. 



Inherited variations are everywhere apparent in the world of life, and no- 

 where more so than in the differences and inequalities of structure and func- 

 tion common to human beings. Such variations are the raw materials for 

 classification, evaluation and correlation in the complex problems of individ- 

 ual, family and racial fitness. Fitness is a convenient term to express 

 variability in inherited capacities for adaptation and survival. Human 

 beings are innately unequal in fitness for health, disease, education and 

 duration of life. 



Present-day knowledge of heredity and of the relation of heredity to en- 

 vironment and to longevity shows that the evaluation of individual fitness 

 is today, and must forever remain a fundamental and universal problem. 

 Each individual is unique, he is the first and last of his particular kind, and 

 he is only one link in his endless chain of hereditary ascent and possible de- 

 cent; therefore fitness problems deal first with the individual, second with 

 his family and third with his stock. 



Fitness cannot be measured in millimeters, nor can it be evaluated by the 

 use of frequency curves, norms, statistical constants and correlation co- 

 efficients, derived from measuring man in the mass. If we would evaluate 

 the fitness of a given individual, we must compare, as far as possible, his 

 inheritance with that of his ascendants, fraternity, descendants and stock; 

 we must investigate his history in relation to nutrition, health, disease, 

 injury, education, occupation, opportunities in life and other environmental 

 influences; and as a part of the physical and mental examination, we must 

 recognize and correlate his inherited variations of structure and function. 



Further progress in fitness problems depends upon intensive studies of 

 individuals, families and stocks in relation to inherited differences and in- 

 equalities — variations of structure and function. Since structure and func- 

 tion are inseparable, and since the recognition of inherited variations of 

 structure enables one to distinguish one individual, one family, one stock 



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