Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Telegony.--The influence of the paternal seed on the physical and
mental constitution of the child is well known. To designate this
condition, Telegony is the word that was coined by Weismann in his "Das
Keimplasma," and he defines it as "Infection of the Germ," and, at
another time, as "Those doubtful instances in which the offspring is
said to resemble, not the father, but an early mate of the
mother,"--or, in other words, the alleged influence of a previous sire
on the progeny produced by a subsequent one from the same mother. In a
systematic discussion of telegony before the Royal Medical Society,
Edinburgh, on March 1, 1895, Brunton Blaikie, as a means of making the
definition of telegony plainer by practical example, prefaced his
remarks by citing the classic example which first drew the attention of
the modern scientific world to this phenomenon. The facts of this case
were communicated in a letter from the Earl of Morton to the President
of the Royal Society in 1821, and were as follows: In the year 1816
Lord Morton put a male quagga to a young chestnut mare of 7/8 Arabian
blood, which had never before been bred from. The result was a female
hybrid which resembled both parents. He now sold the mare to Sir Gore
Ousley, who two years after she bore the hybrid put her to a black
Arabian horse. During the two following years she had two foals which
Lord Morton thus describes: "They have the character of the Arabian
breed as decidedly as can be expected when 15/16 of the blood are
Arabian, and they are fine specimens of the breed; but both in their
color and in the hair of their manes they have a striking resemblance
to the quagga. Their color is bay, marked more or less like the quagga
in a darker tint. Both are distinguished by the dark line along the
ridge of the back, the dark stripes across the forehand, and the dark
bars across the back part of the legs." The President of the Royal
Society saw the foals and verified Lord Morton's statement.
"Herbert Spencer, in the Contemporary Review for May, 1893, gives
several cases communicated to him by his friend Mr. Fookes, whom
Spencer says is often appointed judge of animals at agricultural shows.
After giving various examples he goes on to say: 'A friend of mine near
this had a valuable Dachshund bitch, which most unfortunately had a
litter by a stray sheep-dog. The next year the owner sent her on a
visit to a pure Dachshund dog, but the produce took quite as much of
the first father as the second, and the next year he sent her to
another Dachshund, with the same result. Another case: A friend of mine
in Devizes had a litter of puppies unsought for, by a setter from a
favorite pointer bitch, and after this she never bred any true
pointers, no matter what the paternity was.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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