LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
DR. CLIFFORD ALLBUTT ON COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS.
IT° VIZ EDITOR OF mas "SPECTATOR."]
Sta,—I note an interesting query in your recent comments upon Dr. Clifford Allbatt's paper on competitive examinations : "Will Dr. Allbutt just tell us why, if physical injuries are not inherited, which is certain, mental injuries should be ? The
exam-nee may be hurt, and we are certain often is, but his claim are not."
I fear you are in error with regard to the transmission of physical injuries. Some physical injuries certainly are inherited; the injuries inflicted by trainers upon thoroughbred horses leave their mark upon the offspring. The whole history of the survival of the fittest points to the inheritance of abnormalities which are the result of external influences more or less in the nature of injuries. It is well known that some dog-fanciers pro- duce an exaggerated pug by breaking down the nasal bones, which I am told has its effect upon the progeny; and it is difficult to account for the tailless eats of the Isle of Man, if we reject the theory of centuries of mutilation. Men who do no work have children with small extremities. Fish spawned in the dark come at last into the world without organs of vision ; and it is well known that short-sight is constantly transmitted from parent to offspring. Now, if the father did not overstrain his eyes,. he would not be short-sighted, nor would he beget short-sighted children; but he does overstrain his eyes, and he does beget short-sighted children, who, again, transmit the defect. Here is. clearly an instance of a self-inflicted injury which is undoubtedly transmitted, and if a physical injury of this kind is carried down for generations, why should not a mental or cerebral injury, the result of overstrain, have a deleterious effect or reappear in the offspring? Men who cannot perform their- tasks without stimulants, as is the case with some orators and actors, are apt to have children with an abnormal tendency to alcoholism. No one is surprised at this.. They say, "His father drank before him." The thief, the coward, the liar, the miser, reproduce themselves. "Like begets like," all the world over ; I am sure the remark applies to acquired as well as to natural peculiarities, and if men will overstrain themselves in the endeavour to develops the mental at the expense of the physique, we cannot wonder that their- offspring should suffer. Children whose eyes have been damaged for life by the present craze for "cram," under the modern School-board system, are constantly brought under my notice ; and I entirely concur with Dr. Clifford Allbutt, to whom the thanks of the nation are due for his manly protest against the evils of competition. Knowledge is, no doubt, a good thing. in itself, but it is evil, and not good, if purchased at the cost of broken health and spirits, or a tendency to disease which damages the race.—I am, Sir, &c.,
CIIARLES BELL TAYLOR, M.D., F.R.C.S. Park Row, Nottingham.
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