The inborn factors in disease : an essay / by Archibald E. Garrod.

  • Garrod, Archibald E. (Archibald Edward), Sir, 1857-1936.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The inborn factors in disease : an essay / by Archibald E. Garrod. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    65/168 (page 61)
    INHERITANCE OF MORBID LIABILITIES 6i direct infection of one member by another, or very special conditions of environment, a malady which occurs in several generations of a family with more than average frequency, does so in virtue of some inborn peculiarity of the stock. Some of the chief difficulties which, until recent times, surrounded the study of inheritance have now been overcome, thanks to the work of Francis Galton and Gregor Mendel, and those who have carried on so assiduously the researches which they initiated. Such problems as that of atavism and the skipping of generations, and the 'knight's move' inheritance of haemophilia and colour blindness, have lost most of their obscurity, and no longer present any great diffi¬ culty of interpretation. It is not possible, in such an essay as this, to attempt to give any general account of the modern views on heredity, and it will be necessary, whilst speaking of their bearing upon the particular problems here dis¬ cussed, to assume that the reader has at least some acquaintance with the Mendelian theory and the views of Galton. It must be recognized, at the outset, that a disease or anomaly which is present at birth is not necessarily inborn. There are some diseases which may be acquired in utero^ such as congenital syphilis, and some con¬ genital deformities are the results of intra-uterine amputations or minor injuries. Obviously all such may be excluded from this inquiry.