Abstract
Heredity and Disease” in Man Dr. L. S. Penrose's Buckston Browne prize essay is a discussion of heredity as a factor in human disease, and is written from the medical point of view (London: H. K. Lewis and Co., Ltd. 5s. net). The obsolete term “unit characters” is retained, and the author makes a slip in stating that “characters” are arranged within the chromosomes. Nevertheless, a serious and, to a considerable extent, successful attempt is made to harmonise the genetical and statistical points of view as regards inheritance. Among other results is included a study of a pedigree in which idiocy appears as a simple recessive, the heterozygotes developing senile dementia. From the statistical analysis of various families containing mental—defectives, the conclusion is reached that in certain consanguineous families this condition is caused by single rare recessive genes, while in other families more complex relations obtain. Other conditions in which the inheritance element is analysed include inongolism, epilepsy and epiloia. It is suggested that sporadic cases of epiloia arise as mutations, and that the inheritance is dominant, although some cases are more in conformity with a recessive in heritance. A brief discussion of medicine and eu genics closes with the suggestion that in collecting pedigrees they may usefully be confined to only two generations, a suggestion which will not be generally accepted.
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Research Items. Nature 134, 630–632 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134630a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134630a0