Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 87-88. (Budapest, 1979)

TANULMÁNYOK - Czeizel, Endre: A heredodegeneraciós tan történeti értékelése (angol nyelven)

a pedigree of three generations where this disorder occurred in 19 progenies out of 45. The special interest of the pedigree is that polydactylia was accompanied by syndactylia in two cases and by 3-phalanxed thumb in several cases. The documentation and analysis of the genealogical tree demonstrating autosomal dominant inheritance is exemplary and still utilizable. He gave account of another aspect of the investigations at Tépe (1. sex distribution of births; 2. mode of inheritance of twin-births; 3. question of lifespan) in the same series (v. III. No. 2.) in 1929 under the title "Statistical and genetic investigations from the register of births and deaths of a Hungarian community in the Great Plain going back 152 years". In his material 109 sons fell to 100 daughters. He analysed the sex distribution at birth in connection with the age of the parents. In 56 cases of twin births he could set up the genealogical table going back to many generations. Twin birth occurred in both the maternal and paternal lines in 12 cases, only in the maternal line in 11 cases and only in the paternal line in 14 cases. By this the autosomal recessive mode of inheritance of "twin-disposition" through maternal line accepted at that time became unwarrantable. Károly Csörsz explained the well-known familial cluster of twins by "dimerous" recessive inheritance. His researches of lifespan showed that "the longer the father lives, the higher per cent of children will reach the age of 60." In this work he announces that next he will publish together with the famous Bonnovie from Oslo the statistical and genetic analysis of 848 fingerprints. It was unfortunately prevented by his early death. Károly Csörsz's researches of population genetics in Tépe must be highly appreciated even today, and in his time it was without example even internationally. Ernő Jendrassik established the conception of heredodegenerative diseases separating them from exogenic affections and including these clinical pictures of diverse manifestations into a uniform pathologic group on the basis of their general clinical, genetical similarity. Károly Schaffer, on the basis of his experience in neurohistologic researches in Tay-Sachs and other disease, put forward the general and uniform histopathological grounds for hereditary systematic neurological diseases. Finally Károly Csörsz with his profound and still acceptable human genetic interpretation of clinical diseases as well as with the initiation of researches in population genetics in Hungary proved to be a worthy continuer of the elaboration of the doctrine of heredodegeneration. As L. van Bogaert, an international expert of the question stated: "... this work must be carried on in modern genetics because of its extent, harmony and inherent realism."* * Acknowledgement: I am grateful to academician István Környei MD for his critical remarks and useful advice and furthermore to professor István Benedek for his valuable help.