Heredity and Disease

Abstract

IN the lately issued Bulletins Nos. 16 and 17 of the Eugenics Record Office (Cold Spring Harbour, New York) Prof. C. B. Davenport and Dr. Elizabeth B. Muncey discuss “Huntington's Chorea in relation to Heredity and Eugenics” and “The Hereditary Factor in Pellagra.” Nearly a thousand cases of the chorea “can be traced back to some half-dozen individuals who migrated to America during the seventeenth century.” The disease manifests itself in various sets of symptomsnervous tremors, dementia, etc., most of which act as dominants. Though the hereditary nature of the disease has been recognised for generations, “there is no clear evidence that persons belonging to the choreic lines voluntarily abstain to any marked degree from, or are selected against, in marriage.” With regard to pellagra, there appears to be a distinct hereditary predisposition to infection; nearly half the children of a pair of susceptible parents are themselves susceptible.