Schlegel, Terabaschi, W. Meiner, Eichorn, Heeren, Voigt, Hurter, Hallam and Maitland. The reason may be as Peaskin says, that there is at the present age, one antagonistic principle at work, the pride of science which imagines that the energy of Nature can be explained by its analysis, and which looks down upon Faith and shields itself by its negation of a Deity under what are termed natural laws. What do we mean by natural laws? They may be understood in different senses. As one definition we may use that of Jevons viz. That they consist of general propositions concerning the co-relation of properties which have been observed to hold true of bodies hitherto observed. We may accept the five different senses in which, according to the Duke of Argyle the word law is habitually used. what, the hour and the why, unless we We must look for the motive power "A Law so vast in its demands.” If we ascribe it to nature, we but give another name for an effect whose cause to the Christian is God, but to 1st. We have Law as applied simply the materialist is X or an unknown to an observed order of facts. 2nd. To that order as involving the action of some Force or Forces, of which nothing more may be known. 3rd. As applied to individual Forces the measure of whose operations has been more or less defined or ascertained. 4th. As applied to those combinations of Force which have reference to quantity. The laws of Heredity are far from being simple. Albert Lemonie tells us that the law of Heredity is indisputable, but is not inflexible; it admits of tempering, it has an elasticity peculiar to itself, and it is often effaced before the action of Laws more profound. It admits then the fulfilment of Purpose or the dis- of variation. Is the problem of Herecharge of Function. dity any more difficult than the one of the unity of species? Hardly so much so. 5th. As applied to abstract conceptions of the mind not corresponding with any actual phenomena, but adduced therefrom as of thought necessary to our understanding of them. Law in this sense, is a reduction of the phenomena, not merely to an order of facts, but to an order of thought. In considering such laws we have to enter on the field opened out by the 22. Jevons. Principles of Science. There is great analogy between the problem of Heredity and that of the unity of the human race. The question once was, to find amidst diversity a law of uniformity, but so diverse was the human race that there were disputes amongst naturalists aud anatomists as to their unity. Some believed that 23. Argyle. The Duke of Reign of Law, p. 64. there were separate and distinct creations of men, others adhering to the the Biblical text that maintained the two following propositions: several species has of late years been much agitated by anthropologists who are divided into two schools of Monogimists and Polygimists. 1st. Homines unius speciei esse phibi- Those naturalists ologice probatur. 2nd. Psychologice probatur esse speciem humanam. unam who admit the principle of evolution, and it is now admitted by the greater number of rising men, will feel, no doubt, that all the races of men are descended from a single primitive stock When the races of man diverged at an extremely remote epoch from their common progenitor they will have differed but little from each other and been few in number. In a series of forms Voltaire, as a disciple of the former school asserted "qu'il nija qu'un aveugle qui puisse douter que les Blanes, les Negres, les Albinos, le. Hottentots, les Japons, les Chinois et les Americains ils soient des races entierement distincts." Sir Henry Holland says: "It has been contended not only that there is no proof of the derivation of mankind graduating insensibly from some apefrom a single pair, but that the pro-like creature to man as he now exists it bability is against it. Some have ven- would be impossible to fix on any detured to suppose an original and abso- finite point when the term "man ought to be used. But this is a matter of very lute difference of species. Many have Finally adopted the idea of detached acts of little importance. creation through which certain of the we may conclude that when the princimore prominent races had their origin ples of evolution are generally accepted in different localities." as they surely will be before long the dispute between the Monogemists and the Polygemists will die a silent and unobserved death." suys, We may consider the problem as now solved, and that the Christian position is substantiated by the evidence of two distinct schools and by representatives of each school, Darwin and Quatrefages. Darwin5 "Man has been studied more carefully than any other organic being and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race or as two (Virey) as three (Jacquinot) as four (Kant) five (Blumbach) six (Buffon) seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz) eleven (Pickering) fifteen (Bory St. Vincent) sixteen (Des Moulins) twenty-two (Morton) sixty (Crawford) or sixty-three according to Burke. The question whether mankind consists of one or 24. Lemonie. L'Instinct et L'Habitude. p. 118. Quatrefages is equally explicit. He says: "Human groups however different they may be or appear to be are only races of one and the same species and not distinct species. Therefore there is but one human species. All men belong to the same species and there is but one species of men. Species is then a reality, and science may affirm that from all appearances each species has had, as point of departure, a single primitive pair.” External and internal influences have modified and altered the physical and moral qualities of man, and the various 25, Darwin. Descent of Man, p. 226, 229. p. 469. Sir H. Holland. Essays on Scientific Subjects, influences which have produced these changes have been explained by Theistic, Pantheistic, Atheistic and Materialistic writers, so that amidst diversity a certain law of uniformity has been observed. 1 own families, or in your own social circle, one of the simplest forms of heredity, the heredity of external structure, thus you find children resembling their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, etc., in countenance, features, exprestion, or in some individual peculiarity. This form has been recognized from the earliest periods of history. We find it mentioned in the Manava Darma Shastra in the Biblical records, in the old poems. representing the traditional beliefs of various countries. Catullus,26 Horace, and the Latin poets frequently allude to it, and the Romans applied names derived from Hereditary peculiarities to certain families, as Nasones, Labeones, Buccones, Capitones. This is rudimentary ground, for nothing is more undisI therefore agree with the following puted than the heredity of the physical proposition: Similarly with "Heredity" we have to search for uniformity amidst diversity. The result of my inquiries has led me to adopt the views maintained by the school, which through evil repute and good repute, adhered to the belief that the whole human family were derived from a primitive pair. I hope to prove that hereditary tendencies range over the whole field of human life, but at the same time they are checked and kept under control by other tendencies, powers and laws. "Ea enim velut naturae lex est, ut quallibet entia viventia cum prognatio suis pleraque bona et mala, vires et defectus, quibus ipsa predita sunt via generationes communicent. Unde fit ut probibus parentum vitia, propensiones, praesertim cupiditates animales, etc., passim ingenita suit, non minus quamvultus et totius corporis figura, habitus, temperamentum." structure so that I need not waste much time upon this physiological portion, concerning heredity of the healthy physical state. The heredity of disease or of malformation is equally well proved, and there are many instances which I might lay before you. One of the strangest and best known examples of this, is that of Edward Lambert, whose whole body, with the hands and the soles of the feet, was exception of the face, the palms of the covered with a sort of carapace of horny excrescences, which rattled against each other. He was the father of six children, all of whom, from the age of six weeks, presented the same singularity. The only one of these who survived transmitted it to all his sons; and this transmission going from male to male was kept up during five generations.28 Another instance is to be found in the Colburn family which presented one child which it will be remembered caused extensive anterior distension. The same phenomenon was noticed, but in less marked degree with the two sueceeding pregnances. She noticed some swelling of the abdomen after each of the three last deliveries, but the enlargement whatever it was would pass away after the lapse of from a few weeks to a few months. It was not however until after her last labor that she noticed this bulging of the belly whenever she was on her feet. The obstetric binder had not been used after her last three deliveries, a circumstance which I believe had nothing whatever to do with the causation of her rupture. None of her labors had ever been so severe as to demand the forceps. I saw her for the first time August 9th, 1888, with her family physician, Dr. R. D. Higgins of West Alexandria, Ohio. At that time when the patient was standing in ordinary attire, the enlargement suggested either a large tumor or a pregnancy at term; but when the abdomen was exposed, the patient still standing, it was found to be much more pendulous than is usual in either of these conditions. The lower border of the pouch extended quite three inches below the level of the pubes. When the patient laid down. this mass would not entirely disappear by force or gravity, but a very little manipulation would effect reduction. When now, she made an effort to rise directly from her back the pouch would be at once reformed, the corrugations on either side of the abdomen indicating the location of the contracted recti muscle, quite eight inches apart. On the assurance being given that conservative measures could only bring relief without cure, an operation was asked for, the patient consenting to enter the private wards of St. Mary's Hospital for the purpose. Operation, August 23d, 1888.-Present and assisting, Drs. Geo. E. Jones, William Judkins and W. H. Wenning. An incision was made in the median line from an inch and a half below the ensiform cartilage to within an inch of the pubes. This was carried only to the superficial fascia. A director was now used to raise the superficial fascia from the underlying structures but when the cut was made it was found to have entered the peritoneum which was lying immediately below and intimately coherent to the fascia. The finger introduced into the cavity now confirmed the previous diagnoses as to the position of the recti muscles. The short peritoneal opening was now closed by continuous cat gut suture. The dissection was then carried back on either side between the subcutaneous fat and the fascia to a point corresponding to the anterior border of the recti muscles. Interrupted sutures of heavy cat gut As were now introduced at intervals of half an inch, in and out on either side, through the fascia and taking a "bite" into but not through the muscle. these sutures were tightened the intervening tissues (fascia and peritoneum) were folded inwards by a long sound. In this way the redundancy of the interior layers of the wall was disposed of. The external layers (fat and skin) were now found to be too big for the narrowed abdomen, so a strip of tissue was removed from either side of the median incision, the two forming an ellipsis nine inches long by four inches wide. The wound was now closed in the usual way by a superficial line of interrupted silk sutures. The patient made an uninterrupted recovery. In subsequent cases of this kind I shall modify the foregoing techinque, first by making no effort to go below the superficial fascia, and next, by introducing successive rows of cat gut sutures until, little by little, the recti muscles are drawn together. The question arises whether or not it would have been better to have boldly resected the wall in its entirety carrying the ellipsis through skin, fat, fascia, pentoneum and all. I prefer the course which I pursued because resection of the peritoneum is not destitute of danger; and because the infolding of the fascia as described and suggested results in the formation of a sort of column which furnishes valuable support to the viscera. NOTE.-September 19. The patient left the hospital September 14th. The wound had entirely healed. When the patient stood on her feet without the bandage the redundancy of the abdomen was found to have disappeared. |