Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

by Richard A. Proctor

The commonest, and therefore the least interesting, though perhaps the most instructive of the phenomena of heredity, are those affecting the features and the outward configuration of the body. These have been recognised in all ages and among all nations. A portion of the Jewish system of legislature was based on a recognition of the law that children inherit the bodily qualities of the parents. The Greeks noted the same fact. Among the Spartans, indeed, a system of selection from among new-born children prevailed, which, though probably intended only to eliminate the weaker individuals, corresponded closely to what would be done by a nation having full belief in the efficacy of both natural and artificial selection, and not troubled with any strong scruples as to the method of applying their doctrines on such matters. Among the Romans we find certain families described by their physical characteristics, as the Nasones or Big-nosed, the Labeones or Thick-lipped, the Capitones or Big-headed, the Buccones or Swollen-cheeked. In more recent times similar traits have been recognised in various families. The Austrian lip and the Bourbon nose are well-known instances.[15]

Peculiarities of structure have a double interest, as illustrating both variation and persistence. We usually find them introduced without any apparent cause into a family, and afterwards they remain as hereditary traits, first inherited regularly, then intermittently, and eventually, in most cases, dying out or becoming so exceptional that their occurrence is not regarded as an hereditary peculiarity. Montaigne mentions that in the family of Lepidus, at Rome, there were three, not successively but by intervals, that were born with the same eye covered with a cartilage. At Thebes there was a family almost every member of which had the crown of the head pointed like a lance-head; all whose heads were not so formed being regarded as illegitimate. A better authenticated case is that of the Lambert family. The peculiarity affecting this family appeared first in the person of Edward Lambert, whose whole body, except the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet, was covered with a sort of shell consisting of horny excrescences. He was the father of six children, all of whom, so soon as they had reached the age of six weeks, presented the same peculiarity. Only one of them lived. He married, and transmitted the peculiarity to all his sons. For five generations all the male members of the Lambert family were distinguished by the horny excrescences which had adorned the body of Edward Lambert.

A remarkable instance of the transmission of anomalous characteristics is found in the case of Andrian Jeftichjew, who, three or four years ago, was exhibited with his son Fedor Jeftichjew in Berlin and Paris. They were called in Paris les hommes-chiens, or dog-men, the father's face being so covered with hair as to present a striking resemblance to the face of a Skye terrier. Andrian was thus described:—'He is about fifty-five years of age, and is said to have been the son of a Russian soldier. In order to escape the derision and the unkind usage of his fellow-villagers, Andrian in early life fled to the woods, where for some time he lived in a cave.

During this period of seclusion he was much given to drunkenness. His mental condition does not seem to have suffered, however, and he is on the whole of a kindly and affectionate disposition. It may be of interest to state that he is an orthodox member of the Russo-Greek Church, and that, degraded as he is intellectually, he has very definite notions about heaven and the hereafter. He hopes to introduce his frightful countenance into the court of heaven, and he devotes all the money he makes, over and above his outlay for creature comforts, to purchasing the prayers of a devout community of monks in his native village, Kostroma, after his mortal career is ended. He is of medium stature, but very strongly built. His excessive capillary development is not true hair, but simply an abnormal growth of the down or fine hairs which usually cover nearly the entire surface of the human body. Strictly speaking, he has neither head-hair, beard, moustache, eyebrows, nor eyelashes, their place being taken by this singular growth of long silky down. In colour this is of a dirty yellow; it is about three inches in length all over the face, and feels like the hair of a Newfoundland dog. The very eyelids are covered with this long hair, while flowing locks come out of his nostrils and ears. On his body are isolated patches, strewed but not thickly with hairs one and a half to two inches long.' Dr. Bertillon, of Paris, compared a hair from Andrian's chin with a very fine hair from a man's beard, and found that the latter was three times as thick as the former; and a hair from Andrian's head is only one-half as thick as an average human hair. Professor Virchow, of Berlin, made careful inquiry into the family history of Andrian Jeftichjew. So far as could be learned, Andrian was the first in whom this wonderful hirsuteness had been noticed. Neither his reputed father nor his mother presented any peculiarity of the kind, and a brother and sister of his, who are still living, are in no way remarkable for capillary development. The son Fedor, who was exhibited in company with Andrian, was illegitimate, and about three years of age. Andrian's legitimate children, a son and a daughter, both died young. Nothing is known of the former; but the daughter resembled the father. 'Fedor is a sprightly child,' said the account from which we have already quoted, 'and appears more intelligent than the father.' The growth of down on his face is not so heavy as to conceal his features, but there is no doubt that when the child comes to maturity he will be at least as hirsute as his parent The hairs are as white and as soft as the fur of the Angora cat, and are longest at the outer angles of the eyes. There is a thick tuft between the eyes, and the nose is well covered. The moustache joins the whiskers on each side, after the English fashion, and this circumstance gives to accurate pictures of the child a ludicrous resemblance to a well-fed Englishman of about fifty. As in the father's case, the inside of Fedor's nostrils and ears has a thick crop of hair.' 'Both father and son are almost toothless, Andrian having only five teeth, one in the upper jaw and four in the lower, while the child has only four teeth, all in the lower jaw. In both cases the four lower teeth are all incisors. To the right of Andrian's one upper tooth there still remains the mark of another which has disappeared. That beyond these six teeth the man never had any others is evident to anyone who feels the gums with the finger.'

The deficiency of teeth, accompanied as it is by what is in reality a deficiency not a redundancy of hair—for Andrian and his son have no real hair—accords well with Darwin's view, that a constant correlation exists between hair and teeth. He mentions as an illustration the deficiency of teeth in hairless dogs. The tusks of the boar, again, are greatly reduced under domestication, and the reduction is accompanied by a corresponding diminution of the bristles. He mentions also the case of Julia Pastrana, a Spanish dancer or opera singer, who had a thick masculine beard and a hairy forehead, while her teeth were so redundant that her mouth projected, and her face had a gorilla-like appearance. It should rather be said that in general those creatures which present an abnormal development in the covering of their skin, whether in the way of redundancy or deficiency, present, generally, perhaps always, an abnormal dental development, as we see in sloths and armadilloes on the one hand, which have the front teeth deficient, and in some branches of the whale family on the other, in which the teeth are redundant either in number or in size. In individual members of the human family it certainly is not always the case that the development of the hair and that of the teeth are directly correlated; for some who are bald when quite young have excellent teeth, and some who have lost most of their teeth while still on the right side of forty have excellent hair to an advanced age.[16]

Another case, somewhat similar to that of Andrian and his son, is found in a Burmese family, living at Ava, and first described by Crawford in 1829. Shwe-Maong, the head of the family, was about thirty years old. His whole body was covered with silky hairs, which attained a length of nearly five inches on the shoulders and spine. He had four daughters, but only one of them resembled him. She was living at Ava in 1855, and, according to the account given by a British officer who saw her there, she had a son who was hairy like his grandfather, Shwe-Maong. The case of this family illustrates rather curiously the relation between the hair and teeth. For Shwe-Maong retained his milk-teeth till he was twenty years old (when he attained puberty), and they were replaced by nine teeth only, five in the upper and four in the lower jaw. Eight of these were incisors, the ninth (in the upper jaw) being a canine tooth.

Sex-digitism, or the possession of hands and feet with six digits each, has occurred in several families as a sudden variation from the normal formation, but after it has appeared has usually been transmitted for several generations. In the case of the Colburn family this peculiarity lasted for four generations without interruption, and still reappears occasionally. In a branch of a well-known Scotch family sex-digitism—after continuing for three or four generations—has apparently disappeared; but it still frequently happens that the edge of the hands on the side of the little finger is partially deformed.

Hare-lip, albinism, halting, and other peculiarities, commonly reappear for four or five generations, and are seldom altogether eradicated in less than ten or twelve.

The tendency to variation shown in the introduction of these peculiarities, even though they may have been eventually eradicated, is worth noticing in its bearing on our views respecting the formation of new and persistent varieties of the human as of other races. It must be noticed that in the case of the human race the conditions not only do not favour the continuance of such varieties, but practically forbid their persistence. It is otherwise with some varieties, at least, of domestic animals, insomuch that varieties which present any noteworthy even though accidentally observed advantage have been made practically persistent; we say practically, because there seems little reason to doubt that in every case which has hitherto been observed the normal type would eventually be reverted to if special pains were not taken to separate the normal from the abnormal form.