children
than in legitimate and more common in alcoholic mothers; there is an
unfavorable environment of poverty in both cases, added to in the
latter and usually in the former by the injurious action of the
alcohol.

The more extensive malformations have no effect on heredity, because
the subjects of them are incapable of procreation. The malformations
which arise from the accidents of pregnancy and which are compatible
with a perfectly normal germ are in the nature of acquired
characteristics and are not inherited. Those malformations, however,
which are due to qualities in the germinal material itself are
inherited, and certain of them with remarkable persistence. There are
instances in which the slight malformation consisting in an excess of
fingers or toes has persisted through many generations. It may
occasionally lapse in a generation to reappear later. In certain
cases, notably in the bleeders, the inheritance is transmitted by the
female alone, in other cases by the sexes equally, but there are no
cases of transmission by the male line only. It is evident that when
the same malformation affects both the male and the female line the
hereditary influence is much stronger. A case has been related to me
in which most of the inhabitants in a remote mountain valley in
Virginia where there has been much intermarriage have one of the
joints of the fingers missing. There is a very prevalent idea that in
close intermarriage in families variations and malformations often
unfortunate for the individual are more common. All experimental
evidence obtained by interbreeding of animals shows that close
interbreeding is not productive of variation, but that variations
existing in the breed become accentuated. Variations either
advantageous or disadvantageous for the race or individual may either
of them become more prevalent by close intermarriage. It seems,
however, to have been shown by the customs of the human race that very
close intermarriage is disadvantageous.

Eugenics, which signifies an attempt at the betterment of the race by
the avoidance of bad heredity, has within recent years attracted much
attention and is of importance. Some of its advocates have become so
enthusiastic as to believe that it will be possible to breed men as
cattle and ultimately to produce a race ideally perfect. It is true
that by careful selection and regulation of marriage certain
variations, whether relating to coarse bodily form or to the