The laws of heredity : their definite meaning and interpretation / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D.

Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The laws of heredity : their definite meaning and interpretation / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    same characteristic or anomaly was manifested by a parent. Examples in point are furnished by those not unfamiliar cases in which a cancerous growth develops at about the same age in parent and offspring, or in which a mental aberration similarly manifests itself. Such manifestations of heredity are spoken of as “homochronous”, but the big word scarcely adds anything to the observed facts. The same may be said of the words “homotic” and “heterotopic” heredity, sometimes employed to express the fact that an inherited anomaly — say a tumor — may appear in the same tissues of the body of parent and offspring (homotic), or in another case in different tissues (heterotopic). The fact is, as regards this particular matter, that a tendency to the development of a tumor may be inherited, but that the precise location of the tumor may perhaps be determined by the ex- traneous circumstances — say a local irritation. The inheritance of special abnormalities of a precise and definite character — say a lock of white hair located on a particular part of the head, as a typical example — is likely to arouse surprise and to call forth comment on the mysteries of in- heritance; yet rightly considered such a phenom- enon is no more remarkable than the inheritance of all the ordinary characteristics that lead to [14]
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