APPENDIX C 209 



there is no apparent transmission. In the millionth and one a 



man with an amputated leg has, perhaps, a son with a deformed 



toe ; thereupon, the transmission of an acquirement is triumphantly 



proclaimed. There is, however, such a thing as mere coincidence. 



It is forgotten that though every mother loses her hymen and 



nearly every terrier his tail, yet congenital absence of hymen and 



tail is still so rare as to be regarded with extreme suspicion. 



Maternal impressions are much relied on. A mother sees a 



mutilated or malformed man, and it happens that her child is 



malformed. Here again the element of coincidence is forgotten. 



Every woman sees malformations during her pregnancy, but very 



few have malformed children. The children of nurses and lady 



doctors are not peculiarly liable to malformations. Moreover, the 



mother gets a mental impression ; the child, something quite 



different, a physical malformation ; therefore, in any case, there is 



no transmission of the mother's acquirement. Often, as in the 



case of gout, diathesis is confused with disease. Thus, father and 



son may both have an inborn (and transmissible) incapacity to 



resist the bacillus of tuberculosis. They both get infected. 



Thereupon, the son is supposed to have inherited consumption 



from the father. He merely inherits the incapacity to resist the 



bacillus. The acquirements, infection and disease, come later. 



Like the parent, he acquires them for himself. Again, certain 



morbid conditions depending generally on structure are inborn, 



e.g. haemophilia. The father, perhaps the first of his race to be 



so afflicted, transmits his inborn peculiarity, like other inborn 



traits, to the child. The new is then confused with the acquired, 



and the transmission of an acquirement thought to be proved. 



O 



