Heredity... What Do You Know About It?

Countless sayings and innumerable beliefs have been uttered down the ages, but modern science gives the lie to much of what was said yesterday. Here are some sayings about heredity — can you tell the right from the wrong among them?

1 – You can know of which sex is the child stirring within you.

Right. Recent chemical tests have proved that 90% of this is fact, beginning from the sixth month of pregnancy, and all the doctor needs is a sample of the mother's saliva, which he works up with his preparations. So now you know which color to choose for the baby's layette!

2 – The mother's fright leaves its mark upon the unborn child.

Wrong. The child's heredity begins at the hour of its conception, and although the unborn child remains in its mother's womb for nine months, there is no direct connection between them by blood or by nerves. The mother, then, cannot make her son a musician by attending concerts, or a man of letters by reading books of the soul, nor does her fright at a mouse affect him; but food does affect his health, since he draws his nourishment from it.

3 – If the eyes of both parents are brown, the child's eyes may be blue.

Right. Each of us has two formations — "Genes" — for every hereditary trait; one prevails in appearance, being the stronger. The color brown dominates over blue; but the child may receive one part from his father and another from his mother, and so come to have two formations of the color blue, and his eyes turn out blue. If your eyes are dark and one of your parents has blue eyes, then you carry a blue formation that may pass to your children.

4 – If the eyes of both parents are blue, their children may inherit the color brown.

Wrong. There must be a brown formation, a "Gene"; the two pass on to their children only a blue formation, and so everyone's eyes come out blue. The same truth holds for blond hair and for straight hair.

5 – Attractive children are often born to plain-looking parents.

Right. The bodily features we consider ugly — the long nose, the large ears, the thick lips, the protruding teeth — may be a natural formation in the parents which the children inherit. But if a person's ugliness results from disease or disfigurement, this is not hereditary and cannot pass to the children.

6 – Twins are usually alike in heredity.

Right — for they are the result of the fertilization of a single egg, which split into two in the first stage of its formation; they have one appearance, and they are of one sex.

As for the other kind of twins, they result from the fertilization of two eggs at one time; and although they are born at one time, they may resemble each other or differ, just as they may be of two different sexes.

7 – Heredity has an importance surpassing that of environment in the making of a person.

Wrong. Although heredity determines the bodily form, it can be corrected: straight hair is curled, the brunette becomes a blonde, and so on!... And parents whose shortness results from poor nutrition — their children surpass them in height, if their food is complete. Study has proved that if twins are separated one from the other and grow up in two different environments, having the same heredity, then every change is the product of environment. The bodily form rarely changes, while a person's thinking and beliefs are shaped by the environment in which he grows up.

8 – Baldness is due to overworking the brain — "grass does not grow on a road crowded with passers-by."

Wrong. Baldness goes back to a formation, a "Gene," that prevails and grows strong in the man, and it has nothing to do with the brain; a person may inherit baldness from his mother or from his father. So if you want to foretell your son's future, look at his father's hair, and at your father's or your brother's.

9 – Consumption is passed on by heredity!

Wrong. Consumption is a germ transmitted by contagion; the child who keeps close to a sick parent may catch the disease, but there is no formation for consumption, or for syphilis, or for any other disease.

If you have answered eight questions correctly, you are an expert in matters of heredity. And now — is there any question left in your mind about the makeup of the child you are expecting?