10 C. W. M. Poynter 



human. Virchow says, " Atavismus ist die Manifestation des 

 urspriinglichen Gesetzes : ein pathologisches Ereigniss da gegen, 

 in so fern es bestimmte Motive der Hemmung mit sich bringt, 

 hindert das bestehende Gesetz, sich zu vollziehen." Topinard 

 quotes Dally as saying, " La reproduction dans un individu ou 

 dans un groupe d'individus de caracteres anatomo-physiologiques 

 positifs ou negatifs que n'offraient leurs parents immediats mais 

 qu' avaient ofifert leurs ancetres directs ou collateraux." 



Cunningham and Smith (1895) fi^d reason to agree with the 

 theory of Vogt in that they find one of their cases more ape-like 

 than human, but they define atavism somewhat dififerently. " We 

 can not shut our eyes to the possibility that in it (case in question) 

 we may have a tolerably faithful reproduction of the gyri and 

 sulci which at one time were characteristic of an early stem form 

 in man." They think a microcephalic brain need not have its 

 development confined to any one stem. " A microcephalic brain 

 may follow a great many different lines in its development of 

 sulci and gyri. The difference in results attained, however, will 

 always be found to depend on the proportion in which the normal, 

 foetal and simian characters are present. As a rule, one or the 

 other of these groups of characters predominate over the others." 

 A true atavism is present only when certain ancestral features, 

 which are omitted in the ordinary course of development, are 

 reproduced, or certain of those parts of the phylogenetic history, 

 which in the ontogeny of the individual have become blurred or 

 abbreviated, reappear in a distinct and intelligible form. 



Mingazzini (1895a) used the terms paleophylogenetic and ata- 

 vistic reminiscences, meaning the reappearance of characters which 

 do not occur in the ordinary development, but which have been 

 possessed by ancestral forms. He insists that pathology is the 

 etiological factor producing atavism. From a later study (1909), 

 he concludes that certain anomalies predominate among micro- 

 cephalics and that the brain presents, beside more or less gener- 

 alized morbid processes, those rudimentary ones belonging to the 

 foetal period. Concening IMingazzini's position on the question 

 of pathology as the exciting factor in the production of micro- 

 cephaly, all investigations seem to point to a much earlier period 



354 



