This essay argues that scrofula was one of several disorders, including gout, rickets, and venereal disease, that were ‘rebranded’ as hereditary in response to broader cultural changes that took place during the Restoration and eighteenth century in England. While the purposes of scrofula’s recategorisation were more political than medical, they resulted in this heretofore relatively obscure childhood ailment assuming a new prominence within both medical and popular discourses of the period. Scrofula became both emblem and proof of the links between sexual promiscuity, financial profligacy, and physiological degeneration, its symbolic status reinforced by the legal and moral language used to model processes of hereditary transmission. By likening the inheritance of scrofula to the inheritance of original sin—or, more commonly, to the inheritance of a ‘docked entail’ or damaged estate—eighteenth-century writers and artists not only made this non-inherited ailment into a sign of catastrophic hereditary decline; they also paved the way for scrofula to be identified as a disease of aristocratic vice, even though its association with crowded, unsanitary living conditions likely made it more common among the poor. By the same token, financial models of disease inheritance facilitated a bias toward paternal transmission, with scrofula often portrayed as passing, like a title or an estate, from father to son rather than from mother to daughter.

Children with a family history of hypertension have higher blood pressure and hypertensive pathophysiological changes begin before clinical findings. Here, the presence of arterial stiffness was investigated using central blood pressure measurement and pulse wave analysis in normotensive children with at least one parent with essential hypertension. Twenty-four-hour ambulatory pulse wave analysis monitoring was performed by oscillometric method in a study group of 112 normotensive children of hypertensive parents aged between 7 and 18 comparing with a control group of 101 age- and gender-matched normotensive children of normotensive parents. Pulse wave velocity, central systolic and diastolic blood pressure, systolic, diastolic and mean arterial blood pressure values were higher in the study group than the control group (p < 0.001, p = 0.002, p = 0.008, p = 0.001, p = 0.005, p = 0.001, p = 0.001, respectively). In all age groups (7–10, 11–14, and 15–18 years), pulse wave velocity was higher in the study group than the control group (p < 0.001). Pulse wave velocity was higher in children whose both parents are hypertensive compared to the children whose only mothers are hypertensive (p = 0.011). Pulse wave velocity values were positively correlated with age, weight, height, and body mass index (p < 0.05). Higher pulse wave velocity, central systolic and diastolic blood pressure values detected in the study group can be considered as early signs of hypertensive vascular changes. Pulse wave analysis can be a reliable, non-invasive, and reproducible method that can allow taking necessary precautions regarding lifestyle to prevent disease and target organ damage by detecting early hypertensive changes in genetically risky children.

Consanguinity is usually defined as the result of a sexual reproduction between two related individuals. It can also refer to populations sharing at least one common ancestor, as those who live within isolates or within communities practicing endogamy. Second or higher order related couples and their offspring represent more than 10% of the current world population. The highest levels of consanguinity are found in the Southern and Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Basin, and the most concerned region extends from the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to Southeast Asia through Middle-East, Gulf and India. In Maghreb countries, consanguineous marriages are wide-spread. The rates for this practice vary from 23% in Morocco to 60% in Tunisia, with highest rates being found in rural areas. In Algeria, consanguineous marriages represent more than 38% of all marriages. Large scale migrations from South countries to North countries in the second half of the twentieth century had legal impact on migrants for these specific unions. As a consequence, controversies have been rising in the United States and the United Kingdom especially when a fast decrease of inter-related individuals unions seems unlikely. Consanguinity certainly increases the risk of autosomal recessive pathology, but what about mental pathologies with complex and polygenic heredity? The necessity of an awareness of the genetic risks of consanguinity is as essential in countries where inter-cousin unions are culturally encouraged as among migrant populations in Europe.

This essay examines the ‘infiltration’ of eugenics into Russian medical discourse during the formation of the eugenics movement in western Europe and North America in 1900–17. It describes the efforts of two Russian physicians, the bacteriologist and hygienist Nikolai Gamaleia (1859–1949) and the psychiatrist Tikhon Iudin (1879–1949), to introduce eugenics to the Russian medical community, analysing in detail what attracted these representatives of two different medical specialties to eugenic ideas, ideals, and policies advocated by their western colleagues. On the basis of a close examination of the similarities and differences in Gamaleia’s and Iudin’s attitudes to eugenics, the essay argues that lack of cohesiveness gave the early eugenics movement a unique strength. The loose mix of widely varying ideas, ideals, methods, policies, activities and proposals covered by the umbrella of eugenics offered to a variety of educated professionals in Russia and elsewhere the possibility of choosing, adopting and adapting particular elements to their own national, professional, institutional and disciplinary contexts, interests and agendas.

Cataract, defined as opacity of the lens in one or both eyes, is a major cause of blindness throughout the world, and not uncommon, particularly in the elderly population. However, congenital cataracts are rare and occur with a frequency of 30 cases in 100,000 births. About one-third of the cases fall into the group inherited without systemic abnormality. Importantly, congenital cataracts produce deprivation amblyopia, refractive amblyopia, and retinal detachment, leading to lifelong visual impairment. Successful management is dependent on early diagnosis and referral for surgery when indicated. Here we present a case of hereditary bilateral cataracts in a dizygotic twin detected on prenatal ultrasound examinations and postnatally confirmed as congenital cataracts associated with posterior lenticonus.

Twins could play a crucial role in our understanding of genetic contributions to numerous etiologically complex disorders. In China, although adult twins are relatively rare, twins will become increasingly available due to increasing twin birth rates. Thus, child twin data will be a valuable resource to contribute to the field of child and adolescent psychopathology. The first twin database of children aged from 6 to 16 was established in Chongqing, R.P., China. In this article, we will discuss our experiences in establishing the twin database, completed in three steps — the first step being to search and identify twins, the second being to keep contact with the twins and the final being to seek cooperation with the twin families, and its future prospects. Our twin database has proven to be an efficient method for the investigation and data collection of twin children in China. The results of our present study suggest that the inclusion of twin information in the residence registration of the public security bureaus in the future may ensure a smooth run of research based on the demographic resources. We propose that school networks may be adopted as the preferred method of collection of twin records for future studies.

Human ethology is defined as the biology of human behavior. The methods it employs and the questions it poses are elaborations of those generally used in the various fields of biology, but especially adapted to the study of man. Observation and experimentation in the natural and seminatural setting as well as the comparative method derived from morphology play important roles in human ethology, and the exploration of phylogenetic adaptations constitutes one of its focal interests. On the basis of observations on experientially deprived and nondeprived children, comparative primate and animal behavior studies, and cross-cultural investigations, certain universal phylogenetic adaptations (in terms of fixed action patterns, innate releasing mechanisms, releasers, innate motivating mechanisms, and innate learning dispositions) have been found to occur. However, human ethology does not restrict itself to the investigation of phylogenetic adaptations. The question as to how a behavior pattern contributes to survival can be posed with respect to cultural patterns as well. Similar selection pressures have shaped both culturally and phylogenetically evolved patterns. Through cross-cultural studies a number of universal social interaction strategies have been discovered.

Evidence for genetic influence on environmental measures will emerge in quantitative genetic analyses if genetically influenced characteristics of individuals are assessed by these environmental measures. Recent twin and adoption studies indicate substantial genetic influence when measures of the environment are treated as phenotypes in genetic analyses. Genetic influence has been documented for measures as diverse as videotaped observations of parental behavior toward their children, ratings by parents and children of their family environment, and ratings of peer groups, social support, and life events. Evidence for genetic influence on environmental measures includes some of the most widely used measures of environment – the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, the Family Environment Scales, and the Social Readjustment Rating Scale of life events, for example. The goal of this article is to document and discuss these findings and to elicit commentary that might help to shape the course of research on this topic, which has far-reaching implications for the behavioral and brain sciences.