564 The American Naturalist. [July, 
ficially mutilated parents, and yet there was not a single 
example of a rudimentary tail or of any other abnormality in 
this organ. The cases of cleft ear lobule have recently been 
summed up.’ Israel reports two cases of clefts in which the 
parent’s ears were normal. Schmidt and Ornstein report 
affirmative cases. His shows that an affirmative case, cited by 
V. Zwieciki, is merely an inherited peculiarity. The entire 
evidence is unsatisfactory, and upon the whole is decidedly 
negative. 
Not so, however, in cases, where the mutilation results in a 
general disturbance of the normal functions of different 
organs, as in the experiments conducted by Brown-Séquard? 
upon guinea-pigs, in which we see “acquired variation ” inten- 
sified. In these, abnormal degeneration of the toes, muscular 
atrophy of the thigh, epilepsy, exophthalmia, etc., appeared in 
the descendants of animals in which the spinal cord or sciatic. 
nerve had been severed, or portions of the brain removed. It 
was also shown that the female is more apt to transmit morbid 
states than the male; that the inheritance of these injuries 
may pass over one generation and reappear in the second; 
that the transmission by heredity of these pathological results 
may continue for five or six generations, when the normal 
structure of the organs reappears. These cases, which are 
incontestable, at first sight appear to establish firmly the trans- 
mission of acquired characters; they were so regarded by 
Brown-Séquard. These lesions act directly upon the organs, 
and the abnormal growth in these organs appears to be trans- 
mitted. But can they not be interpreted in another way, 
namely, that the pathological condition of the nerve-centers 
has induced a direct disturbance in those portions of the germ- 
cells which represent and will develop into the corresponding 
organs of the future offspring? 
Previous Fertilization —Consider next the influence exerted 
upon the female germ-cell by the mere proximity of the male 
1 Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 1891, p. 433. 
*Comptes-Rendus, March 18, 1882. These experiments have been confirmed by 
Obersteiner. 
