A study of the degeneracy of the jaws of the human race / by Eugene S. Talbot.
- Talbot, Eugene S. (Eugene Solomon), 1847-1924.
- Date:
- 1892
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A study of the degeneracy of the jaws of the human race / by Eugene S. Talbot. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Toronto, Harry A Abbott Dentistry Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harry A Abbott Dentistry Library, University of Toronto.
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![8. Appearance of various morbid states of the skin and hair of the neck and face in animals born of parents having had similar alterations in the same parts, as effects of an injury to the sciatic nerve. It should be especially observed that Brown-Sequard has l:)red, during thirty years, many thousand guinea-pigs from animals which had not been operated on, and not one of them manifested an epileptic tendency, nor has he ever seen a guinea-pig without toes which was not the offspring of parents which had gnawed off their own toes, owing to the division of the sciatic nerve. Direct inheritance of an ac- quired peculiarity is sometimes observable. A puppy was taken from its mother at six weeks of age, who, although never taught to beg (an accomplishment his mother had been taught), spontaneously took to begging for everything he wanted when about seven or eight months of age. He would beg for food, beg to be let out of the room, and one day was found opposite a rabbit-hutch begging for rabbit-;. In- stances are on record, too, of sporting dogs which spontaneously adopted in the field certain modes of behavior which their parents had learned.'=^ Horses bred on the grazing farms of the Cordilleras are taught a peculiar pace. This pace is inherited by their descendants.f The Caribs flattened the foreheads of their children, and the con- tinuance of this practice through successive generations produced a natural flattening of the anterior part of the head, until the Carib in- fants w^ere born with flat heads.]; Hippocrates gives an account of the Macrocephalia, a Scythian race believed to have inhabited the Crimea. He says, There is no other race oi men which have their heads in the least resembling theirs. At first, usage was the principal cause of the length of their heads, but now nature co-operates with usage. They think those the most noble who have the longest heads. It is thus with regard to usage. Im- mediately after the child is born, and while its head is still tender, they fashion the head with their hands, and constrain it to assume a length- ened shape by applying bandages and other suitable contrivances, whereby the spherical form is destroyed, and it is made to increase in length. Thus, at first usage operated, so that this constitution was the result of force ; but in the course of time it was formed naturally, so that usage had nothing to do with it. Dr. Harrison Allen says,§ Lectures on correlation of structure, on vegetative repetition, on the relation existing between phyllogenetic and teratological processes, could be given, as well as the study of the laws of heredity, especially in attempting to answer the question of the transmittal of acquired characters. The teeth are so responsive to the constitutional peculiarities of the individual that their peculiarities can be seen and readily detected. The method of procuring accurate impressions can be applied, and the plans of preserving the form of teeth can be easily accomplished. As is known to the zoologist, the parts involved in the act of * Francis Galton. Natural Inheritance. t Prichard, Natural History. + F. M. Goodall, Remote Effects of Foetal Brain-Injury in Labor; or, Why We are Right-Handed, from Tyler Smith's Lectures on Obstetrics. ? Addresses on Anatomy.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21202643_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
