56 Experimental Zoology 
there was any direct connection between the conditions in the 
parent and in the offspring. 
On the other hand, if the results of Charrin, Delamare, and 
Moussu are confirmed, there is a chance that diseased organs 
at least may affect the young in utero. This would, of course, 
only allow the inheritance of acquired characters from the 
mother, and not from the father. This difference might give 
us a chance to test the view that the effects are produced in the 
embryo in utero and not in the germ-cells. It is interesting to 
note that Brown-Séquard found that epilepsy is more often 
transmitted through the mother than through the father. In 
the case of mutilations, the injury may have been inflicted 
years before, and the wounds have completely healed before 
the young are conceived; yet cases of this sort have often been 
cited to show inherited effects. In such cases it is difficult to 
see how such effects could become transmitted, especially 
through the male. 
Weismann has given in the “Essays” referred to above an 
interesting and very full discussion of the supposed cases of 
inheritance of acquired characters. He himself carried out 
some experiments with mice. For four generations the tails 
of mice were cut off. Of the gor mice born during this time 
not one had a short tail, and careful measurements showed 
that there was no shortening at all of the tail of the offspring. 
This experiment was, it is true, almost needless, since it is cus- 
tomary to cut off the tails of certain breeds of sheep and the - 
ears of dogs without these breeds ever having become tailless 
or earless, and circumcision has been practiced in man for cen- 
turies without any appreciable effect. 
Since in these cases the organs operated upon had healed 
over before the next generation was born, there would be little 
chance of the injury directly affecting the embryos. Moreover, 
even if such effects are inherited, it might not follow that the 
tails would be shortened, but at most only diseased in some 
way. 
Recently Nussbaum has commented on this side of the ques- 
