Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjectsProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
University 'stroke-oar' referred to, will understand how closely his
style must have been adopted, when experienced oarsmen, not many yards
from the passing four, were unable to decide at once which of the two
men were rowing,--even though the evening was dusky enough to prevent
the features of the stroke (whose face was not fully in view at the
moment) from being discerned. Seeing that a first-rate oarsman can thus
communicate his style so perfectly to another, it cannot be regarded as
demonstrably a case of hereditary transmission if the Claspers rowed
in the same style as their father, or if the present champion amateur
sculler (making allowances for the change introduced by the sliding
seat) rows very much like his father and his uncle.
Some peculiarities, such as stammering, lisping, babbling, and the
like, are not easily referable to any special class of hereditary
traits, because it is not clear how far they are to be regarded as
depending on bodily or how far on mental peculiarities. It might seem
obvious that stammering was in most cases uncontrollable by the will,
and babbling might seem as certainly controllable. Yet there are cases
which throw doubt on either conclusion. Thus, Dr. Lucas tells us of
a servant-maid whose loquacity was apparently quite uncontrollable.
She would talk to people till they were ready to faint; and if there
were no human being to listen to her, she would talk to animals and
inanimate objects, or would talk aloud to herself. She had to be
discharged. 'But,' she said to her master, 'I am not to blame; it all
comes from my father. He had the same fault, and it drove my mother
to distraction; and his father was just the same.' Stammering has
been transmitted through as many as five generations. The same has
been noticed of peculiarities of vision. The Montmorency look, a sort
of half squint, affected nearly all the members of the Montmorency
family. The peculiarity called Daltonism, an inability to distinguish
between certain colours of the spectrum, was not so named, as is often
asserted, merely because the distinguished chemist Dalton was affected
by it, but because three members of the same family were similarly
affected. Deafness and blindness are not commonly hereditary where
the parents have lost sight or hearing either by accident or through
illness, even though the illness or accident occur during infancy; but
persons born either blind or deaf frequently if not commonly transmit
the defect to some at least among their offspring. Similar remarks
apply to deaf-mutism.
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