title: Inheritance of susceptibility: Lamarckism revisited.
abstract: The familial nature of susceptibility to rheumatic fever has been known for nearly three quarters of a century but even after massive ascertainments of affected families in 5 major cities, viz Toronto, Belfast, London, Glasgow and New York, a consensus on the exact mode of inheritance could not be reached. Reduced penetrance was suggested 40 years ago and still cited today even though the fit is poor. However with the sampling bias of the observed data resolved in the recently formulated geometric continuum v(affected-1) x P(sibship) (where O less than v----infinity) all those published ascertainments clearly show a unilocal Mendelian recessive mode of inheritance. Since rheumatic fever is clearly associated with streptococcal sore throat, I have therefore demonstrated the inheritance of an acquired trait. This Larmarckian concept is explained using simple numerical examples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge Crescent.
authors.forename: K H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Sit
mesh_terms: D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D006801:Humans; D010641:Phenotype; D012213:Rheumatic Fever / Q000235:genetics*