Nature and nurture, the problem of the future : a presidential address delivered by Karl Pearson at the annual meeting of the Social and Political Education League, April 28, 1910.

  • Pearson, Karl, 1857-1936.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Nature and nurture, the problem of the future : a presidential address delivered by Karl Pearson at the annual meeting of the Social and Political Education League, April 28, 1910. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from epilepsy and, like father, died in fits. III. i, normal, married a woman of epileptic ancestry and having herself symptoms of it. III. 3-5, died without record. III. 6, died mad at 37, his eldest child mentally defective and youngest has fits. III. 7, died of alcoholism, three children of whom no record. III. 9, died of alcoholism. III. 10, 11, 12, 15, and 16, epileptic, of whom III. 15 died in a fit. IV. 2, osteoarthritis, heart disease, and dropsy. IV. 4, chronic ble- pharitis. IV. 7, mentally defective, lamellar cataract, right eye lost. IV. 8, died in a fit. IV. 10, died of pneumonia at five weeks. IV. 12, severe convulsions. All IV. 1-12, undersized and of poor intelligence. See Plate I, Fig. 11. Lastly, I would illustrate from a subject with regard to which we have been able to obtain much data—Deaf- mutism. I believe that congenital deaf-mutism might be stopped in a generation. Yet what do we find ? Deaf- mutes marrying deaf-mutes and reproducing their kind with an astonishing fertility. Provision seems to be made for these unfortunates in every way, and for every new generation that is born of them. Examine the pedigree 1 and you will see at once how this plague spreads. Families D + P + R. Nothing is known of I. 1 and 1.2; they had six children of whom three daughters, II. 1, were normal, but no statement was available with regard to their descendants, if any. Another daughter, II. 2, was a deaf-mute and died. II. 3, the son, was unmarried, deaf-mute, and ‘ hopelessly diseased in face II. 4, another deaf-mute daughter, married II. 5, also a deaf- mute, the son of normal parents, I. 3 and I. 4, who had other five normal offspring, II. 6. It is stated that II. 5 had no deaf-mute relatives. II. 4 and II. 5 had six children, III. 1-4 ; III. 1, deaf-mute, married III. 12, deaf-mute, but there was no issue of this marriage, III. 2 had partial hearing, III. 3 was a deaf-mute, and the other three children, III. 4, could all hear. I. 5 and I. 6 were normal and were not known to have any deaf-mute relatives. Two of their children were deaf-mutes, II. 8 and II. 9. II. 9, a mattress-maker and alcoholic, died 1 Treasury of Human Inheritance, Fig. 273.