Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1904

SIR FRANCIS GALTON (1822-1911) Natural inheritance. Macmillan 1889 ix [3] 259 pp., illus. 22 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 1902

Basing this volume on his two earlier works on heredity (see Nos. 1902 & 1903), Galton here applies statistical methods to the problems of filial regression and ancestral inheritance. "If the word "peculiarity" be used to signify the difference between the amount of any faculty possessed by a man, and the average of that possessed by the population at large, then the law of Regression may be described as follows. Each peculiarity in a man is shared by his kinsmen, but on the average in a less degree" (p. 194). With regard to ancestral inheritance, he concluded that "the average contributions of each separate ancestor to the heritage of the child were determined apparently within narrow limits, for a couple of generations at least. The results proved to be very simple; they assign an average of one quarter from each parent, and one sixteenth from each grandparent" (p. 195).

See Related Record(s): 1903

Cited references: Cushing G58; Garrison-Morton 233; Waller 10808

Gift of John Martin, M.D.