Degeneracy: Its Causes, Signs and ResultsTalbot, Eugene S. (Eugene Solomon)
History
Degeneracy: Its Causes, Signs and Results
Talbot, Eugene S. (Eugene Solomon)
Abnormalities, Human; Degeneration; Heredity, Human
Certain motor expressions of disturbed functions are also inherited.
Galton describes the case of a man who, when he lay fast asleep on his
back in bed, had the curious trick of raising his right arm slowly in
front of his face, up to his forehead, and then dropping it with a jerk,
so that the wrist fell heavily on the bridge of his nose. The trick did
not occur every night, but occasionally, and was independent of any
ascertained cause. Sometimes it was repeated incessantly for an hour or
more. The gentleman's nose was prominent and its bridge often became sore
from blows which it received. At one time an awkward sore was produced
that was long in healing on account of the recurrence, night after night,
of the blows which first caused it. His wife had to remove the buttons
from the wrist of his nightgown, as it made severe scratches, and some
means were attempted of tying his arm. Many years after his death his son
married a lady who had never heard of the family incident. She, however,
observed precisely the same peculiarity in her husband; but his nose, from
not being particularly prominent, has never as yet suffered from the
blows. The trick does not occur when he is half asleep, as, for example,
when he is dozing in his armchair, but the moment he is fast asleep he is
apt to begin. It, as with his father, is intermittent, sometimes ceasing
for many nights, and sometimes almost incessant during a part of every
night. It is performed, as it was with his father, with his right hand.
One of his children, a girl, has inherited the same trick. She performs it
likewise with the right hand but in a slightly modified form; for after
raising the arm she does not allow the wrist to drop upon the bridge of
the nose, but the palm of her half-closed hand falls over and down the
nose, striking it rather rapidly, a decided improvement on the father's
and grandfather's method. The trick is intermittent in the girl's case
also, sometimes not occurring for periods of several months, but sometimes
almost incessantly. These "tricks" suggest nocturnal epilepsy, however.
The face of a child is often fully developed, yet, owing to some of the
constitutional diseases, arrested development of the face at this point
takes place. The second generation inherits this deformity, while the
grandparents possess normally developed faces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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