12Section I.A. Marro.
A special study of the matings where one or both of the parents was
migrainous or alcoholic, shows a close relationship between these conditions
and epilepsy.
The following conclusions are drawn from the study.
The common types of epileptics lack some element necessary for
complete mental development, This is also true of the feeble-minded.
Two epileptic parents produce only defectives. When both parents are
either epileptic or feeble-minded their offspring are also mentally defective.
Epilepsy tends in successive generations to form a larger part of the
population. The normal parents of epileptics are not normal but simplex, and have
descended from tainted ancestors.
Alcohol may be a cause of defect in that more children of alcoholic
parents are defective than where alcoholism is not a factor.
Neurotic and other tainted conditions are closely allied with epilepsy.
In the light of present knowledge, epilepsy, considered by itself, is not a
Mendelian factor, but epilepsy and feeble-mindedness are Mendelian factors
of the recessive type.
Tainted individuals, as neurotics, alcoholics, criminals, sex offenders,
etc., are simplex and normals or simplex and normal in character.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE AGE OF PARENTS ON THE
PSYCHO-PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE OFFSPRING.
(Abstract.)
By Antonio Marro,
Director of the Lunatic Asylum, Turin.
The natural law of heredity holds good whether for the physical char
acteristics or for those which are biological and moral.
The apparent anomalies which children present in not reproducing the
qualities of the parents, and the unlikeness frequently noted among the
children of the same family, only serve to reveal the presence of the par
ticular conditions of the parents at the time of begetting which has influenced
the offspring.
We have a proof of this law in the anomalies presented by the children
of parents who, at the time of begetting, were themselves in anomalous con
ditions by reason of intoxication or disease.
Among the conditions of parents which are capable of influencing the
characteristics of children must be included the changes which their organism
undergoes by reason of advancing age.
I propose to study the effects of age on the physical and moral characters
of the children. My researches have extended to numerous criminals and
