A first study of the inheritance of vision and of the relative influence of heredity and environment on sight / by Amy Barrington and Karl Pearson.

  • Barrington, Amy.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A first study of the inheritance of vision and of the relative influence of heredity and environment on sight / by Amy Barrington and Karl Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    A FIRST STUDY OF THE INHERITANCE OF VISION, AND OF THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT ON SIGHT. By Amy Barrington and Karl Pearson, Galton Eugenics Laboratory, University of London. (1) Introductory. According to Mr Galton's definition of the science of National Eugenics, this new study is concerned with the influence not only of nature but of nurture on racial qualities. In seeking to illustrate the relative intensity of the two factors, heredity and environment, it occurred to us that eyesight might form a suitable character for investigation. We must at once confess that the suitability in question arose from the subject matter and not from the investigators. As our attempt may appear over bold to the specialist in the field of ophthalmology, we must briefly state the reasons for our selection of this topic. In the first place a relatively large amount of data, wholly unreduced from the standpoint of modern statistics, was available. In the second place much of this material was associated with observations of home and school conditions which would possibly throw light on the influence of the environment lactor. Thirdly we found a large number of statements as to age, town and school surroundings, heredity and home, which are doubtless more or less accurate, but appear to have been given hitherto no quantitative relationship, and to be occasionally wanting in adequate statistical basis. From this standpoint the material possessed considerable fascination for the student of modern statistical methods. Lastly while much of the data bearing on other human characters has been collected by the layman, the measurement of vision has been, owing to its practical importance, a favourite study of the medical expert. This advantage, however, is accompanied by the inconvenience, that our material is drawn rather more from abnormal than normal sources. In dealing statistically with the data available we have endeavoured to avoid gross blunders of interpretation by appealing for technical knowledge to specialists. Among these we have in the first place to thank Mr E. Nettleship for his ready answers to many questions placed before him, and for his copious references to ophthalmic literature ; it is, perhaps, needless to add that he is in nowise responsible for any conclusions drawn or opinions expressed in this memoir, the data and methods of which were only placed before him for his ever useful and friendly criticism after the completion of the manuscript. (2) Material. The scope of this memoir being twofold, we turned first to the question of heredity and sought for the best material available on the inheritance