The study of the clinical material concerning the patients hospitalized at the Rome Forlanini Sanatorium during 25 years has indicated 894 patients of postprimary pulmonary tuberculosis, constituting 447 pairs of single-born brothers (♂♂ or ♂♀ or ♀♀).

The above pairs have been studied from the standpoint of their concordance with respect to the following three clinical parameters: (i) age of onset of postprimary tuberculosis; (ii) clinical form of the reinfection; (iii) pulmonary localization of the tubercular process. Such parameters were studied in the case of the brothers living together, as well as in the opposite case.

On the basis of the statistical analysis of the results, the AA. conclude for the existence of a tubercular predisposition in terms of a hereditary trait significantly influencing the course of postprimary tuberculosis with respect to both onset and localization, and especially to the clinical form. The clinical parameters appear to be more concordant, though in a statistically nonsignificant way, when the two affected brothers lived together.

The family and individual variability of the predisposition to pulmonary tuberculosis appears to be demonstrated. According to the AA., such predisposition would be inherited through a multifactorial mechanism.

Alder's anomaly of the leucocytes, which had been considered as a manifestation of the gene-carrier of Fuchs' atrophia gyrata chorioideae et retinae, has not been found in other cases of the latter disease.

During routine karyotypic analysis of patients with mental deficiency and congenital malformations, a partial deletion of the short arm of a B (4-5) chromosome was observed in two children (a male, 23 months old, and a female, 4 months old).

Clinical pictures and chromosomal abnormalities were found to be consistent with the findings in the « cri du chat » syndrome.

A case of two daughters of consanguineous parents, one with « pure gonadal dysgenesis », and the other with severe ovarian hypogenesis are reported. Both patients have positive nuclear pattern, and normal feminine karyotype, i e. 44 A + xx.

After reviewing the literature on familiar cases of « rudimentary gonads syndrome », the AA. suggest that the genetic mechanisms involved are different, according to the clinical picture and the chromosomal constitution.

In the few cases of classical Turner's syndrome with xo karyotype, a repetition of a chromosomal nondisjunction, during maternal or paternal gametogenesis, can be accepted. The cases of chromosomal mosaicism are probably related to an anomalous mitotic division of normal zygotes which takes place in the same woman, in the course of more than one pregnancy.

Various interpretations can be given to the cases of familiar pure gonadal dysgenesis. Since the patients show more often a normal feminine or masculine karyotype, the possibility that the anomaly is bound to an autosomal recessive gene has been suggested (see Hauser's case, 1960, in which, as well as in the one here reported, the parents were consanguineous).

Other possibilities are not to be underestimated: an early lesion of the gonads by environmental maternal factors, also in subjects with different genetic sex, should be taken into account.

A family with dysplasia spondylo-epiphysaria tarda is reported. This dysostosis clearly differs both clinically and genetically from Morquio's disease. The onset is at the age of ten or later. The skeleton deformation concerns mainly the vertebral column and lesser the thorax and pelvis. In the course of life the degeneration increases slowly. Eleven male members of this family were affected and out of these eight have been examined. An X-linked-recessive inheritance is suggested. The remarkable clinical and genetical analogy with the families described in the literature justifies the assumption that the dysplasia spondylo-epiphysaria tarda be an independent disease clearly differing from Morquio's one (Lamy and Maroteaux).

A sibship is described three sibs of which being carriers respectively of occipital meningocele, craniorachischisis and Klippel-Feil Syndrome. The last two sibs presented malformations of the heart and the digestive and genitourinary apparatuses. Genetic and anatomo-pathologic considerations.

Phenotypic and gene frequencies determination of the Gc-system in 103 Italian subjects (Rome). Phenotypes: Gc 1-1, 56.31%; Gc 2-2, 5.82%; Gc 2-1, 37.87%. Genes: Gc1, 0.7525; Gc2, 0.2475. Comparison with the data for Europe and other continents. The phenotypic frequencies have been projected on a system of triangular coordinates.