1894.] Criticism: Transmission of Mutilations. 9 
transtnission of acquired characters have long wished, a case of 
which they think that it alone would suffice to overthrow the 
entire structure of their opponents. But how far, then, would 
such a case, if it were really authenticated, be more in position 
to establish the kind of transmission asserted than the case re- 
lated by v. Baer, the claim of Versehen®? I think there lies in 
the very extraordinary rarity of such cases, a strong indication 
that there is concerned an accidental, not a causal, occurrence. 
If cuts could really be transmitted, we should have to expect to 
meet very often such birth-marks corresponding to the pater- 
nal scar, in nearly all such cases, namely, in which the son in- 
herited the features of the father.” 
From the preceding description we have seen that the appar- 
ently so convincing cases of the transmission of former injuries, 
which I have described, surely do not speak in favor of this 
theory, which requires nothing less than unimpeachable proof; 
they accord in part with the cases discussed by Weismann, in 
which direct proof could be furnished that the peculiarities in 
®In passing, I should like to mention how prevalent the belief in the Versehen of 
pregnant women still even in so-called educated circles, and should lke to relate, 
only as a curiosity, the following case which occurred also in a family of acquaint- 
ances. r. X. went driving with his daughter, who was in the fourth month of 
pregnancy. By an unlucky chance the pet dog of the young wife fell under the 
sien and was terribly mangled. At the npn ot the donean karaos the a 
made involuntarily a movement of the 
behold the timely born, completely normal child, bad on the same region a lenge blood- 
red s r. X. assured me that neither in his family nor in that of his wife had a 
similar iat ever appeared, and so all were agreed that this red mark of the 
child must stand in direct relation to the movement of the mother at Aas H wi the 
bleeding dog. I could only express to the family m t tl 
young wife possessed such great presence of mind, joined to tender iiy Sa. 
that she made the motion of the hand towards just that region, for if, as is wont to 
the rule at horrible spectacles, she had covered her eyes with her hand, then the child 
would have had to bring into the world a peculiar facial ornament, something in the 
line of a blood-red nose. To go further into detail with regard to the impossibility of 
the Versehen of pregnant women, I regard as superfluous. It is sufficiently well- 
karan that from the moment of the PESER of the egg by the spermatozõon, the 
fi embryo is decided, both so far as its form as well as its individual An/agen 
are ised Naturally, on account of es intimate connnection of the fruit with 
the mother, sickness which affects the entire organism of the latter, wil) also work 
detrimentally to the embryo, but neither beautiful nor horrible appearances on the 
part of the pregnant can produce the slightest change in the form of the embryo. 
