THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1951.
WHY YOU ARE WHAT YOU ARE
By Amram Scheinfeld =
HOW LIFE BEGINS
BOY OR GIRL?
Think about yourself: In all the history of the world there was never anyone else exactly like you, and in all the infinity of time to come there will never be another. WHAT MADE YOU WHAT YOU
ARE?
WHAT DID YOU GET FROM YOUR PARENTS AND YOUR ANCESTORS ? WHAT OF YOURSELF CAN YOU PASS ON TO YOUR CHILDREN?
Until recent times all this was a matter of theory and speculation. Then, dramatically following a series of some of the most remark- able experiments in a scientific history, the whole neid of genetics (the study of heredity and varia- tion among living things) became brilliantly illumined.
Problems of heredity that confounded the greatest thinkers und scientists of the past, from Aristotle to Darwin. have been solved.
Long-standing mysteries about birth and development have been unravelled. And the basle principles of heredity-which explain why and what you are-are now us clear as the workings of a watch.
What you came
A:
·from
an
IF
The questions answered
in this article
A WOMAN LOSES HER BEAUTY COULD
IT AFFECT HER CHILDREN'S LOOKS?
WHO DETERMINES THE SEX OF A CHILD
-
MOTHER OR FATHER?
WILL A DRUNKARD'S SON BE A DRUNKARD?
WHY ARE MORE BOYS BORN THAN GIRLS?
And just a enstly, bad up-bringing can thwart or cancel the effects of grod heredity.
Next to being born, the most important single
the Into fact attending your coming
world was whether you were to be a male or a female.
You may find interesting to test your know- ledge as to what determines vex.
Which of these statements would you say is right, which wrong?
1. The sex of an unborn child can be influenc- ed before, during or aller conception by
have started
(a) the stars,
(b) the moon,
We
SPERM and
You may egg: You, like every with genes that ended to make -you a brillant, person, but other human being akness, poverty, hard luck or and most other laziness kept you from getting animals, began life as just an education.
Your children would be born that.
with cxnety the same mental if you had - equipment as
a quired a string of degrees from
(c) the climate, or (d) the mother's dict
2. It can be much influenced before conception by the cd- alkall"
treatment, от other (Acid for a chemical means. pirl-alkat for a boy.)
Among babies dying before or Immediately after birth (or who come into the world defcctive) the proportion of males greatly
exceeds that of females.
In short, males--not females weaker -are bielogically the sex, not only before birth, but in infancy, and always there after,
Thus, if despite their greater weakness, and the greater toll taken of them on the road to birth, there still are more boys be born than girls, it can only because more boys are started of in the race-perhaps 20 per- ent er even more, in the belief of many authorities
Born in war.
A popular questen is whether a tendency to bear sons mes not rum in certain families of Individual, Quite possibly, yes.
Ordinarily, a "run" of either xons or daughters in a given family may be as much a matter cf chance 13 1 succession of heads or tails.
cr
Yet the sinkingly high dis- proportion of either daughters in some large families tercessive generations sug- gests other possiblUlies.
Long-living
* AND WHY DO ★ DAUGHTERS,
OR SÖNS, RUN IN FAMILIES?
A
N example of the
doininating a family is thro to be found in Dutch Royal household. Ex-Queen Wilhelmina teas the only child of a mar- riage. Her only child, Juliana, no Queen, kas four daughters (pictured above) but no 80%.
Again, apparently not, Careful adics by scientists have pra- 200 no cowoberative results. All of which isn't to say that En method may not eventually found which will give parents me power with regard loving a child of the sex they daire.
IT IS possible that hereditary factors may be operating in
No doubt H parents can have some families to enduenze the
perhaps directly bay girl baby as they wish, ratios, sex
will bring happiness in many through the gents.
vidual cases. Another theory is that fathers
But for come c (or mothers) who
society at large i sturdy and long-lived strains, may open up a Finder's bix er
rew headaches and troubles. who themselves and
So perhaps the genelle proces vigeur, grastically mentor in may tend to sire sturdier boy sex determination may still babies with a better chance of be the best and the mast that can be said is that the barter prenatal survival.
Old wives' tales
-about sex-
THERE are other questions.
Can the weather or climate
cf con-
a son
الله
A BELIEF of long standing of where you happen to Eve is that the ratio of boys born influence the chances
eriving bearing 3. On an average, as many goes up in wartime. A single sperm enters
boys are conceived as girls, bus. Granted that somewhat more daughter?
are born meie boys
because than the
of average number
Apparently not, for, studies in in- Oxford, single egg and A new
Suppose you are a woman they are stronger. dividual is started on its
boys are born during wartime, the United States over a ten- icon beau::ful who had
4. A mother's In
age or con eclentists don't believe there year period show that the sex effect on way.
drhord, but, through accident, difler has no
her need be anything supernatural rates average up to about the giving blich
to a about .
same in one part of the coun- suffering or hardship: had lost chances of
bey or a girl. your locks.
We know that a father's role
in his child's herettily is fixed
The children born to you a
queen!
The reason might be chiefly ry as compared with another. differences In of those state- that during or fellowing wars despite marked Every one
there is a age Increase in climate.
ger, healthier, or more favoured man before conception (cld" mothers, who normally produce do a girl-alkall for ambos) a higher ratio of boys.
influence sex determination?
the moment that it is conceive, yeur plainest period would be ments is wrong! Whatever is that the father not one whil different than had The sex every child is child-bearing among the youn- Can the "acld-akai!" treal- passes-on-do-his child must be developed into beauty fixed at the instant of concep contained within that single
tion-not through the mother. but through the father.
Nothing from that first instant can change, what is to be a girl into a boy, or vice versa
sport.
Suppose you are a soldier who shocked, binded, shall
We know at last that what was o human sperm carries are 24 crippled, invalided.
somes,
minute things called chromo- If you had a chill today his And we know beyond heredity would be basically the any doubt that these chromo- same as that of any child you have dathered. in your somer must comprise all the migh hereditary material contributed fullest vigour.
Nevertheless, there may by the father,
considerable difference in the offspring born to parents under differer conditions.
What of the cgg? Although many thousands of times larger than the sperm, it is yet smalter than a full-stop on this page.
It consists largely of foodstuffs
wh the exception, of tiny
globule, or mucious, What that
How boy or girl fis decided-
tenties we rea when the sperm TAKE this situation:-
bead enters the egg and releases
As elromosomge.
X-Y riddle
THE schillon of the mystery of sex determination cume about; be through this discovery:
4
That the only difference be tween the chromosomes of a man and woman lies in Just one of the pairs--in fact, in a slugle chromosome of this pair. Of the 24 pairs of chromo-
one
For The Honour
Of
Britain
From R. M. MacCOLL
NEW YORK.
the
In
Loulstang,
he
G
may
ternment
of daughter 37-year-old somes, 23 pairs which we could TN August 1776, during promptly fell in love with the number from A to
A to W. inclusive
the American revolu Colombian diplomat. --are alike in both men and
So the baroness is suing for tionary war, American women. Any one of them could
General Nathaniel Wood- divorce. The last straw, she told Judge, was having to type A young man is a teetotaller just as readily be in either sex,
But when we come to the 24th hull was taken prisoner at out the love poems which Fritz Almost at the same time, the when he marries and fathers pair there is a difference. For
composed for the other lady. egy nucleus breaks up and
Twenty years inter he every woman has in her cells Jamaica, Long Island.
TWENTY-ONE-YEAR OLD u son. releases its 24 similar chromu bezemes a drunkard and then two of what we call the "X" He was wounded in the.
Sergeant John Mason, back in somes-the contribution of the fathers another son.
West
Virginia, but a man has just arm and died a month later Morgantown, chromits mother to the child's heredity."
W the record son be more
the mole being
in a British camp..
after nine months in Korea, was the "widest awake likely to take to drink than the tiny "Y" 48 chromosomes first? Quite definitely.
it is
is the presence of that pair In 1904 they put up an in- known us Not because the genes passed of chromosomes
In the male scription outside the local coun- boy In the outht." Two days his scand (the "X" combination) and cil school which said Woodhull, after he got home he was killed THE NEW Individual is thus on by the man to
48 chromo alcoholic,"
SOIX could be any more the "XX In the female that while a captive, was mortally in a car crash. Police reported
he fell asleep at the wheel. started off with
but because the Pris the machinery of sex wounded by a British officer for A BRITISH ALICE romes. These 48 chromosomes first son grew up under the in development In motion and refusing to say 'God Save the
wander through her Wonder- comprised all the physical
on New York cinema heritage with which you began fluence of a sober father, while results later in all the differences King."
the younger brother will grow that there are between a mas
Next date is 1947, when Mr lund your life.
British his screens at the same time that the influence of
II. Sabine, a W. up under
and a woman.
torian, came to live in the Alice, the American cartoon
wanders character,
through By a process of division and drunken one. redivision
United States, went for a stroll, these initial 48 There is no evidence whatso- chromosomes are
Walt Disney lost so multiplied ever that drunkenness or other
saw the inscription, and decided hers.
his lawsult inherited
Why more boys
to do something about it. that eventually every cell in the bad habits can body contains an exact replica directly as much
He has been busily digging to prevent a French-made Alice, played by British actress Carol -than girlsZaromet
into the archives and carrying Marsh and supported by pup of each and every one of them. If children of drunkards are What these chromosomes con- drunkards themselves, the most
on an immense correspondence
the school board ever pets, being shown at the same
time as his cartoon Allee. of apparently are many ke
explanation would be, HAVING solved the mystery with
at sex determination, WC since.
SOLEMNLY the Court of gelatinous beads cbsely strung through exemple."
confronted with another Now it looks as though Sabine together.
Thus where heredity' may fall are
will get British military honour Appeal rules 61 that pupils These bends alther aro in down, erwiromment may be there mystery
in New York City's free munici
released themselves,
may be or contain, the to carry on.
Year after year it is found vindicated. He has convincing "penes," and is the gener And if you ask, "Can I pats that more boys are born than proof that Woodhull received pal schools
to attend outside religious in- which, so far as science can on to my child any of the ac- girls, in most Baropean coun his wound white gallantly re- from classes one hour a week
struation, now establish are the ultimate Complishment's or improvements ties and in the U.S. the rato sisting capture.
And Sabine is asking for the factors of heredity.
A sculptor who did not want I have made in mysely the for years has been abmest expet-
About 103,6 boya inscription to be changed ne- answer may be, "Yes! You can by the same:
to be taught re- his children iglon sued to prevent it on the A soldier's child ags on a great deal-not by to 100 gris, Why an excess of cordingly.
THEY are
going to heredity. but by training and Qoys?
ground that Church and Stato The old theory was that mcre environment
oxygen mask for must be separate. MEN since the world began
passengers which costs
The Judges' reasoning: "The have taken comfort In the
bryos
are **stronger on the only 40 cents and is as light a Constitution does not demand thought that they could pass on
average
and this better able handkerchief Unfortunately, that every friendly gesture to their children not merely
you can still talk with it on between Church and State be THE #icecraful, educated, to survive through to birth.” the material possessions they
·Tho actual situation
WAII-NEK-OTE, Creo Indian discountenanced.” car_give had acquired, bu
the decent-living dather
radically different..
chief, collects human sesips,-It TIME, ladies and gentlemen, physical and mental attributes his son a boter stort an ite!
The athletic father can, by More boys are born only be was revealed during a divorco p please. Customers are calling it they had eveloped,
than action in Los Angeles. But he on the play "The Happy Timo" In recent years all pre-exist-example arid draining, ensure his esse many more, boys
buya them all, his counsel add-
add and tho musical "Courtin gls are echceived. ing notions of that sort have child a better physique.
The healthy Intelligent, pleat Baterie dacsn't yet mow why, lodj
hastily been shaken.'
Evidence that the maiz, baby a URL TWO-YEAR Time." With the already an nounced closing of the musicn! No change that we make. In another can, ensure her child a
Broadway ourselves or that is made in us more favourable cry into the is much more ausceptible to de- Daron Fritz von Opel was once "Make a Wish," in our lifetimes, for better or world and offer 15 is born, can test or death on the road to a naine to conjure with in down to bix · plays and nine Tho reason ir poor for worse, cate the passed on to fructice for the better in birth is bome cut by many derman big industry. Buy when musicals....
Andings
The canibi. gut of three years in attendance in the hot weather, our children throu a heredity, innumerable, waow..
Kiat
*
also
Start in life
boys are born because hay-em- fairline", br
maso-
*** OLD
epared 1 woman is for motherhood the slightly greater will be the odds that the nurse will report: "It's a boy!"
NEXT WEEK What will be the colour of your baby's eyes?: Why
you are blonde or brunette
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