480 PROF. B. C. A. WINDLE ON TERATOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 



subjects of hare-lip and cleft-palate, and both also possessors of 

 six digits. I may again revert to the views of Geddes and 

 Thomson on the subject of the influence of nutrition on the 

 determination of sex. Should it be the case that this is the 

 determining factor, it would be a strong argument in favour of a 

 direct somatic influence upon the germ-plasm, though even then 

 it would not prove that the state of the maternal nutrition had 

 anything to do with the production of abnormalities. Meantime 

 the hypothesis just referred to requires a great deal more proof 

 before its acceptance can become at all general. 



Medical literature is full of cases illustrating the influence of 

 the state of health of the parents, both male and female, in pro- 

 ducing the early death of the foetus, or the birth of sickly, ill- 

 developed children. Dr. Priestley states that he knew of one 

 case where a man the subject of slight albuminuria married a 

 young vi^oman apparently in perfect health. They had one child, 

 delicate and fragile, within a year, and the wife aborted subse- 

 quently in three successive pregnancies — the husband growing 

 weaker year by year, and eventually dying of uraemia. Lead- 

 poisoning and other affections of the parents, most notably of 

 all syphilis, may be followed by the same results. Again, as 

 Stolz * has observed, fat women are often sterile and if they 

 conceive are apt to abort. He believes this depends on nutrition 

 taking an abnormal direction, and that the nutritive fluids 

 destined for the nutrition of the embryo are thus insuflacient for 

 its development. All these influences, however, produce, as 

 might be expected, general efli"ects upon the whole foetus, and not 

 isolated or scattered abnormalities, at least so far as we at 

 present know. 



Part 3. — Effect of Placental Diseases, 

 Various diseases are known to attack the placenta, in many cases 

 causing the death of the foetus. Is it possible that these may in 

 any instances lead to the production of abnormalities where in- 

 sufficient to cause the death of the foetus ? I have searched 

 tlirough a considerable amount of medical literature without much 

 result. Ercolanif does not mention any such possibility. In 



* Des Accoucliements (quoted by Priestley), 

 t Histology and Pathology of Reproduction. 



