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Darwin Correspondence Project

To C. S. Tomes   16 February [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Feb. 16th

Dear Sir

I am much obliged to you for communicating me the facts on inheritance, which is a subject which always interests me much.2

I may add that I heard about a year ago from Alex. Brandt of St Peterburg of another case in Russia of a hairy man with a hairy son, having deficient teeth.3

Your paper about the enamel on the teeth of the armadillo is most remarkable; & I presume that it will lead you to look at these animals as degraded forms.4

I beg leave to remain | Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

1
The year is established from the reference to CD’s hearing ‘about a year ago’ of a case in Russia of a hairy man with a hairy son. CD annotated the letter from W. W. Keen, 26 September 1873, ‘Russia⁠⟨⁠n⁠⟩⁠ Hairy Boy   a sort of mane running down neck’.
3
Alexander von Brandt’s letter has not been found, but see n. 1, above.
4
In C. S. Tomes 1874, Tomes had written that in the armadillo Tatusia peba (now Dasypus novemcinctus, the nine-banded armadillo), which had no vestige of enamel on its teeth, the first histological structure recognisable in the tooth germ was a well-developed enamel germ, identical with that in other mammalian foetuses of the same age.

Bibliography

Tomes, Charles Sissmore. 1874. On the existence of an enamel organ in an armadillo (Tatusia peba). Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 14: 44–8.

Summary

Thanks for facts on inheritance

Thinks CST’s paper (C. S. Tomes 1874) about the enamel on the teeth of the armadillo is most remarkable.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-8216F
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Charles Sissmore Tomes
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Andrusier Autographs (dealer) (Spring 2013)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8216F,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8216F.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22

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