478 PEOr. B. C. A. WINDLE ON TEEATOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 



the muscles, the optic nerves, and the orbits on the other, is not 

 yet positively known. Secondly, there is the supposed corre- 

 lation between the growth of the brain and the growth of the 

 eye, by reason of which a high degree of cerebral development 

 is apt to be associated with an overdevelopment of the eye." 

 (The remaining two causes given in the paper quoted from are 

 not germane to the subject of hereditary defects.) The con- 

 sideration of the defects dealt with in this last section will be 

 better deferred to the section in which the influence of nerve- 

 action is discussed. 



Absence of the External Ear. — Sedgwick* gives a case of 

 absence of the left external ear — a father not himself presenting 

 the defect, had a son who did ; the father's cousin, a male, was 

 affected as were two of his male children, a daughter escaping. 

 This case, as he remarks, seems to point to the existence of the 

 defect in some earlier ancestor. The same writer quotes a case 

 recorded by Anderson Smith t in which a woman, two of her 

 daughters, and two grand-daughters, had rudimentary lobules to 

 their ears, the male children and grand- children being normal. 



Cleft Lohule of the Ear. — This condition is of particular interest, 

 since it was first brought into prominence by being advanced 

 as an example of the lieredity of a mutilation, in opposition to 

 "Weismann's views. So far from this being the case, the defect, 

 now that attention has been directed to it, seems rather to 

 support his contention. It is to be hoped that the stimulus 

 to observation given by the publication of "Weismann's Essays 

 may lead to the clearing up of more of the many vexed questions 

 in the field of Teratology. The history of the controversy on 

 this condition is as follows. Dr. Emil Schmidt J described a 

 case in which the mother had acquired a cleft of the lobule of 

 the left ear by the tearing through it of an earring whilst at 

 play, at the age of 8 years. Of her eight children, the second, 

 a boy, presented a cleft of the lobule of his left ear, which 

 was regarded by Schmidt as an inheritance of the mother's 

 mutilation. However, His § and "Weismann |i have both pointed 

 out that the cleft in the son's ear is quite different from that 

 of the mother, and occupies a different position. Finally, 



* Med.-Chir. Eev. vol. xxviii. p. 206. t lb. vol. xxxi. p. 457. 



X " TJeb. Vererbung individ. erworb. Eigensch.," Oorresp.-Bl. d. deutschen 

 Ges. f. Anthrop., Nov. 1888. § lb. March 1889. 



II ' Ueb. d. Hypothese einer Vererb. v. Verletzungen,' Jena, 1889. 



