On this point Adami says we must logically admit the action of the toxins on the germ-cells, and the individuals developed from these must, subject to the law of loss already noted, have the same properties. He admits that inherited immunity is rare, but says that it has occasionally been noted. Here we have again merely the same influence, chemical in this case, acting simultaneously on somatic cells and germ-cells, which is not the inheritance of acquired characters at all. Adami remarks that Weismann would make the somewhat subtle distinction that the toxins produce these results not by acting on the body-cells but by direct action on the germ-cells, that the inheritance is blastogenic not somatogenic, and calls this 'a sorry and almost Jesuitic play upon words.' On the contrary, it is the essential point, which Adami fails to appreciate. However, he goes further and refers to endogenous intoxication, to disturbed states of the constitution, due to disturbances in glandular activity or to excess of certain internal secretions. Such disturbances he says, acting on the germ-cells, would be truly somatogenic. In the case of gout he considers that defect in body metabolism has led to intoxication of the germ-cells, and the offspring show a peculiar liability to be the subjects of intoxications of the same order. Now, however important these views and conclusions may be from the medical point of view, in relation to the heredity of general physiological or pathological conditions, they throw no light on the problems considered by myself and other biologists--namely, the origin of species and of structural adaptations. There is no mention anywhere in Adami's short paper of the evolution or heredity of structural characters or adaptations such as wing of Bird or Bat, lung of Frog, asymmetry of Flat-fish or of specific characters, still less of secondary sexual characters, which formed the basis of the hormone theory in my 1908 paper. He does not even consider the evolution of the structural adaptations which enable man to maintain the erect position on the two hind-limbs. He does not consider the action of external stimulation, whether the direct action on epidermal or other external structures or the indirect action through stimulation of functional activity. All his examples of external agents are toxins produced by bacteria invading the body, except in the case of gout, for which he suggests no external cause at all.