Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1892 — HEREDITY. [ARTICLE]

HEREDITY.

THE INHERITANCE OF ACQIIKKIT CHARACTER. Can Mental Traits In Men or Physical' Peculiarities In Brutes Be Tran»> mltted?—An Interesting Question. At the November meeting of the Brooklyn Ethical Association an interesting paper was read by Dr. Martin L. Holbrook, editor of the Herald of Health, on‘ “Inheritance of Acquired Characters.'.’ He said, in part: “A belief in heredity is as old a* history. In all ages and among all people it has Itcen observed that children inherit certain characters and peculiarities from their parents, and transmit them on to their children indefinitely. We know that the black race never gives birth to white children or to tlioso with straight hair and features belonging to the Caucasian. We know a Hebrew at sight, because all of this race have certain characters; and the same is true of Germans, Irishmen, Italians, and so on. We also know that traits in animals arc wonderfully persistent; that they do not disappear after hundreds and thousands of years. Agassiz tells of Animals in Lake Erie exactly like the fossils deposited in the strata long ages ago in the same region. If there were no persiatence in types, our stock-breeders would not be able to < alculate on what they could do iu improving breeds; nor could our horticulturalists rely on any fixed law In altering the character of any plant. “Within the last, decade an entirely new study of the subject has been made. Woismann vigorously denies that acquired characters ever are, or ever can be, transmitted to offspring, and many other evolutionists are equally positive in the *.ime opinion. An acquired character is some trait, some skill, some peculiarity, some state of body or mind, taken on by environment, by food; by education, training, acoident or disease, during the lifetime of the individual. “A wild animal, taken from its native home and domesticated, becomes tame, docile, and loses its wildness; but its young will invariably betray the original instinct, undiminished in force. In the case of the guinea pig, this is still observable after 400 years of domestication. Tiie young guinea pig is as wild to,day, it ia said, as its ancestors ever were.

“The art of playing on the violin or piano, or of singing, ia an acquired character, and every generation has to learn it to ptyscss it. Weismann states that t heNnusical is us strong on the average in the Africans and Polynesians as in tho people of Western Europe, and that, under favorable circumstances, one race is as capable of producing individuals possessed of musical ability of a high order as the other. He cites the case of Brin(lch, of Hulas, a Cuban 1 negro violin virtuoso, who was endowod dot merely with excellency of technique and delicacy of ear, but whose playing, according to the opinions of musical experts, was that of a true artist. He might have citod the caso of Blind Tom, the negro idiot, whose ear for music was so acute, and power to execute so great, that after hearing a piece played once he could repeat it with almost absolute,accuracy. He gives case after case of musical celebrities who have beeu born in families in which it did not exist in any marked degreo, and in which it lifts not been transmitted to descendants. “Tho question may be asked why do not Handels and Mozarts arise in Africa and Polynesia, to which he» replies, even if one having equal musical ability should be born there he would not have an opportunity to develop it much beyond the best Polynesian or African musician.

“The same argument is drawn from the power of uttering intelligible speech. It, also, is an acquired character. Wc do not inherit it, though our ancestors, from time immemorial, have gone on (peaking one or more languages. Prof. Weismann thinks it well established that children of civilized nations, i£ brought up in the wilderness and cut off from all communication with man, would make no attempt to talk with each other. This is told In many well-known cases of young or adult persons found living in an utterly wild state in the woods; cases which have occurred from time to time up to the last century in Germany, France, England and Russia. Nearly all these are said to have uttered sounds resembling the erics of wild animals, with which they had associated, but not one was ever known tp speak. “If we go from intellectual traits to physical, wc get the samo results. Prof. Weismann mode experiments on mice by cutting off their tails for many generations, to test whether an acquired physig 1 character of a tailless mouse would be transmitted. With him it was not. Every mouse born had just as long and just as good a tail as if their parents had not been deprived of theirs. “I have seen, however, a letter from A. J. Studwell, of Lexington, Ky., which seemsto negative Weisman’s experiment In it he says: ‘I selected a pair of wh inice. on account of their rapid breeding I bred them in-and-in, clipping each generation, and selecting a pair of the last young each time, until I got a perfect breed of tailless mice.’ ‘ “We know how very persisteqt the tail is in our domestic animals. Farmers always take off the tails of the young of sheep; but, notwithstanding, this has been done for a very long time, the offspring have good and long tails. The same is true of horses. “Prof. Ermer, who has written a *tl able work in opposition to Weisma cites eases in whicli a variety of dogs have been bred without tails, and gives many cases of domestic animals, in which physical deformity has been transmitted.”