Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — An Interbating Article on Twins. [ARTICLE]

An Interbating Article on Twins.

Mr. Francis Gallon has in the November number of Prater a very interesting article entitled the “ History of Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture.” The materials on which the article were based were obtained by sending circulars containing thirteen groups of questions to twins or persons intimately acquainted with twins. Mr. Gallon distinguishes three classes, those strongly alike, moderately alike, and extremely dissimilar, adding that when the twins are of different sexes they are never closely alike. In eighty reported cases of close similarity, thirty-five entering very fully into detail, there were a few where not a single point of difference could be specified; in the remainder the hair and eyes were almost always identical, amt the height, weight and strength generally very nearly no. The manner and address are usually very similar; the intonation, when speaking commonly, the same, though it frequently happens that the twins' sing in different keys. Similarity is very rarqjn the handwritinc. Mr. Galton cites many mistakes made by near relatives. Notwithstanding the tying of distinguishing ribbons to them, one is often fed, physicked or whipped by mistake ior the other. In one case a doubt remains whether the children were not changed in their bath; in another an artist engaged to paint the portrait of twins had to lay aside his work, and, when he resumed, could not say to which child the respective likenesses belonged. In many instances tutors could not distinguish between their pupils; a twin sister would take two music lessons on the same day to give the other a holiday. Two twins were fond of playing tricks and complaints were frequently made; but the boys would never own which was the guilty one, and the complainants were never certain which of the two he was. One head master used to say he would never flog the innocent for the guilty and another used to flog both. One twin brother visited another at college, and the porter refused to let him out* because he did not know which was entitled to depart. Other ( brothers constantly changed partners at balls without discovery. Children are usually qW'k in distinguishing between their parent and his or .her twin; but Mr. Galton found two cases to the contrary 7 . He knows four or five instances of doubt during an engagement of marriage. Thus: “A. married first, but both twins met the lady together for the first time and fell in love with her there and then. A managed to see her home and to gain her affection, though B went sometimes courting in his place and neither the lady nor her parents could tell which was which.” One lady remarks that kissing her twin sister was like kissing a part of herself, as her hand, and not like kissing another person. The author suggests an experiment —to try how far dogs could distinguish between twins by scent. Of strange mistakes between twins in middle life two cases are cited—one where an officer returned from India after four years’ absence was addressed by his father: “I thought you were in London;” another, where an aged mother had nervously expected the return of her son from India, his ship being overdue, and when he entered said to him, mistaking him tor another brother who lived with her; “No, no, it's a bad Joke; you know how anxious I am.” As a curious feature Mr. Galton notes the apparent interchangealileness both of expression and character. In seven of the thirty-five cases of close similarity both twins suffered from some special a'llment or had some exceptional peculiarity. Two sisters had the defect of not being able to come down-stairs quickly, which was not born with came jon at the age of twenty, Another pair of twins have a slight’ congenital flexure of one of the joints of the little finger; it was inherited from a grandmother, but neither parents, brothers nor sisters show the least trace of it. In another case one was born ruptured and the other became so at six months old. Two twins at the age of twenty-three were attacked by toothache and the same tooth had to be extracted in each case. There are curious and close Correspondence mentioned in tMb falling off of the hair. Two cases are mentioned\bf death from the same disease ;Jin one a brother died of Bright's disease, and the survivor died of the same complaint seven months afterward. In nine out of the thirty-five cases it appears that both twins are apt to sicken at the same time. There are also cited the recorded instance of pathological resemblance in twin brothers afflicted”with asthma and rheumatic ophthalmia (Trousseau’s “Clinique Medicate,” quoted in Darwin’s “Variation Under Domestication”), and in two insane brothers (Dr. Moreau's “ Psychologie Morbide”). In the latter case both brothers considered themselves subject to persecution by the same enemies, who adopted the same means, and even when confined in separate asylums they, would, at irregular intervals of tidie, bp/usually on the same day, rouse themselves from their prostration, making the same complaint of detention, and desire liberation. Mr. Galton sent the facts in this case to the prominent physicians to the insane in England, asking’if they had ever witnessed anything similar, and received in reply three noteworthy instances, though none as exact in their parallelism. Another curious French case of insanity in twins is described by Baume in the “Annates. Medico-Psvchologiques,” fourth series, Vol. 1863, p. 312. In eleven out of thirty-five instances similarity in the association of ideas is noted. They make the same remarks on the same occasion, begin singing the same song at the same moment, anil so on; or one will commence a sentence and the other fimsli it. In one case one twin, who happened to be at a town in Scotland, bought a set of champagne glasses which caught his attention, as a surprise for his brother, while at the same time that brother, being in England, similar set, of precisely the same pattern, as a surprise for him. In sixteen of thirty-five cases the tastes and dispositions are described as closely similar; in the remaining nineteen they were much alike, but subject to certain named differences, which were always those of intensity and energy. From all these facts Mr. Galton deduces the conclusion that the resemblance between twins is not superficial, but extremely intimate. The twins were, in the cases summarized,..,, reared exactly alike up to their early manhood and womanhood. Then the conditions of their lives changed. What oblige of conditions has produced the most'variation’ The replies showed that the parents ascribed what dissimilarity there was wholly or almost wholly to some form of illness. In only a very few cases is there some allusion to the dissimilarity being partly due to the combined action of many small influences, and in no case is it largely, much less wholly, ascribed to that cause. In not a single instance is there

a word about the growing dissimilarity being due to the action of the firm, free will of one or both of the twins, which had triumphed over natural tendencies. Mr. Galton last examines twenty cases where there was’ a great, dissimilarity at first, to ascertain how far an identity of nurture in childhood and youth tended to assimilate them. All these cases are absolutely accordant. Their evidence is to the effect that nature prevails enormously over nurture when the differences of nurture, do not exceed what is commonly, to be found amongajjrsons of the same rank Of society the same country, for where in twins astropg dissimilarity in tastes and habits has-been noted in early childhood it has never been lessened or removed by identity of association, influence or education.