DOCTOR’S CLAIMS

Southland Times, Issue 18931, 3 May 1923, Page 5

DOCTOR’S CLAIMS

TRANSMISSION OF GENIUS. NEW BIOLOGICAL THEORY. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, May 1. Dr Kammerer, the well-known Vienna specialist, lecturing before Cambridge University Natural History Society, declared that it was possible by experimenting on human beings to make genius hereditary, just as acquired characteristics in animals were transmitted to succeeding generations. The new development would entirely supersede eugenics, the results of which were usually negative. His experiments showed that bad qualities can be minimised and good qualities cultivated, but the parents must be normal, healthy people, with a full sense of their responsibility to their children. It would he as easy to hand down acquired vices as acquired virtues. The lecturer added that he had not yet experimented with human i beings, but he had clearly established the theory with animals. Dr Kammerer also claimed that he had developed eyes in a sightless newt by exposing the animal to a red light five years after birth. Whereas daylight caused a dark pigment to form over the eyes, a red light allowed optic development. Cambridge experts say Dr Kammerer’s work is the greatest advance in biological science in recent years —a striking development of th? work of Darwin on Evolution and Mendel on heredity.