Reversive anomalies in the study of the neuroses / by Irving C. Rosse.

  • Irving C. Rosse
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reversive anomalies in the study of the neuroses / by Irving C. Rosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ticated animals atavism plays a considerable role in all races that have been formed by breeders. With dog-fanciers and stock-raisers it is a matter of so much concern that they have need to exer- cise great care in the multiplication of these ani- mals, and to choose as reproducers only those whose grandfathers have no transmissible defect. On this point the experiment mentioned by Dar- win may be cited: The Earl of Powis caused some domesticated hump-backed .cattle to be crossed by the wild species of India, with the re- sult not of producing a medium grade of charac- teristics, but of a marked reversion to the ancient. If the time allowed, I might adduce numerous other instances of remote atavism, such as that of the numerous muscles appearing abnormally in man which are normal to the lower animals, notably the monkey. Other facts of the same order have reference to the teeth; the persistence of the molar and the metopic sutures and of the semi-lunar fold in the eye, double mammaries or uterus ; and other sleeping conformations, that are sometimes recalled into existence. It is in virtue of atavism that man, like other animals, often reproduces the traits of his grand- parents. Characters occasionally make their re- appearance in him which we have reason to be- lieve were possessed by his early progenitors. Unhappily for man, atavistic antecedents are not taken into account in the matter of union of the sexes. People marry and the offspring frequently resemble the grandparents, not only morphologi- cally, but in temperament, diathesis, and even their diseases. It is well known that portrait galleries and the monuments of churches in Europe help to trace the source from which some long-lost type of fea- ture has been derived; and the reappearance of