Section I.
Biology and Eugenics.
[VARIATION AND HEREDITY IN MAN. (Abstract.)]
By Professor G. Sergi, Professor of Anthropology, Rome.
In his paper Professor G. Sergi wishes to show that in man after his morphological characteristics are established there occur no profound variations to change the typical forms which are naturally persistent.
The principal discussion concerns the different forms of the skull which are important as characteristics of race. Professor Sergi distinguishes in the human skull two principal and primordial forms: the dolichomorphic and the brachymorphic are both very ancient, as they are found contemporaneously in European human fossils. Consequently he attacks the idea of the transformation of one form into another. He does not find it demonstrated that the dolichomorphic type is transformed into the brachymorphic, and considers the causes adduced for this supposed transformation insufficient. It is neither the effect of environment of the plains or of the mountains, or the climatic influence of extreme cold, or the increase of volume of the brain supposed to be due to greater cerebral activity owing to a more developed culture, that the form of the skull is transformed into another type. All these suppositions are contrary to facts, because dolichomorphic and brachymorphic skulls are found alike in mountain and plain, in northern and southern regions, among primitive and civilized populations, in fact without any distinction.
The mutations that are believed to be found in the different populations are due to the effect of intermixture and penetration of new demographical elements, and not to the transformation of forms. That is also proved by the crossing of the two different human types from which no intermediary forms are derived: but instead there occurs in the heredity a segregation analagous to that under the Mendelian theory. If this were not so, to-day after many thousands of years of intermixture of the most diverse races, there would be but a single form derived from transformation; the demonstration of the facts proves that this has not occurred.
There is a great persistence in human physical forms, the variability is minimum after the formation of the races, and does not effect the changes of type.