6 The American Naturalist. [January, 
The following case is so simple and characteristic, that no 
doubt can exist as to its interpretation. A Mr. S., a perfectly 
normal and well-proportioned man, had from youth up, the 
habit of turning the tip of his rtght foot outward more than 
that of the left, a circumstance which was especially apparent 
in dancing, and also showed prominently in foot-prints left in 
the snow or on moist ground. This peculiarity all his 
children (three sons) have inherited, only with the difference 
that in one of them, besides the right, the left foot also is 
turned out in a like striking manner. Since now the father 
of Mr. S., as a young man, acquired, in consequence of an 
apoplectic fit, apparent lameness of the right leg, as a result of 
which this leg was dragged behind, with the foot strikingly 
turned outward, one concluded that the peculiarity of the out- 
turned toot inherited from the older Mr.S. (i. e., a somatogenic 
character) had been transmitted to his son, and in still stronger 
measure to his grandchildren. As I stand in close connection 
with the family concerned, it was easy for me to acquire the 
necessary information, and I was able to establish the fact that 
the younger Mr. S. was already several years old when his 
father suffered the stroke, and further, that the elder Mr. 53 
from youth up, had complained of a certain weakness in 
the right leg, and that an important deterioration in the con- 
dition of the entire leg appeared directly after the stroke. If 
now one wishes to bring the out-tùrned foot of the younger 
Mr. S. in connection with the infirmity of his father, a thing 
which, according to my view, ìs not at all necessary, then it 
can be regarded as an inherited peculiarity in both the father 
and the son, i. e., a blastogenic, but by no means a somato- 
genic character. Such habits of peculiar postures of the foot not 
infrequently appear suddenly and without visible cause in 
some person or other, without a similar case having been known 
in the family of the same person. I also know a man who, from 
youth up, had the habit of continually turning the right foot 
in a striking manner inward, so that it was jocosely said of him 
he had two left feet; but neither in parents, brothers, children, 
nor other relatives of the man, has ever been noticed any spe- 
cial inclination to a striking position of the foot. | 
