+A disturbance in the normal proportion of the sexes as a symptom of abnormal germ production+ may also assert itself in the opposite direction. O. Lorenz has pointed out the frequent occurrence of an extraordinary increase of male children immediately before the extinction of a family in the male line. One of the most celebrated of these cases is the one of the family of the Emperor Max II. He had six sons and two daughters, who all reached the age of maturity, but not a single male grandchild in the legitimate male line.
Fresh evidence is exhibited by von den Velden in Figure C 44. With the families described by von Riffel, who have died out in the male line, there is still a great preponderance of boys in the last generation in which boys have reached the age of sexual maturity, whereas there is a preponderance of females amongst the brothers and sisters of the wives of the last male issue of the family.
(From Riffel's Tables, after v. d. Velden in the Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschafts-Biologie, 1909, No. 6.)
[A] [B] ======================================================= ===== ===== Decrease of frequency of Marriage. Men: 57 39 Of 100 adults there marry: Women: 61 49
Decrease of duration of life. Men: 38.5 24.0 Average duration of life in years: Women: 33.5 32.0
High mortality of offspring. Of 100 births there died before the 20th year: Fathers, the only members of their Sons 45.5 generation who married. Grandchildren 55.4 Mothers, with childless brothers. Sons 42.0 Grandchildren 46.1
Reversal of proportion of sexes born. To every 100 girls there are born boys: In normal families: 106 In dying-out families: 90
Disturbance to Proportion of Sexes among the Children. Normal: 106 Generation of sonless fathers: 160 " " " mothers: 93
Key to Table ------------ [A] Normal families. [B] Families in process of extinction.
In this connection another figure, C 45, by von den Velden ought to be mentioned. He shows, from investigations made by von Riffel, that the +physical condition of childless couples is on the average inferior to that of fertile parents+. This, however, by no means holds good in every case. Evidence to the contrary is given by the pedigree of an aristocratic family which has died out in the male line. It may be looked upon as typical. One generation (the second), with three times as many grown up men than women, produces only four boys (44% of the children), of whom two reach maturity. With the fourth generation the male issue dies out. Though a large majority of the members of all three generations (2-4th) have good health and attain to an exceptionally high age, most of the female lines also die out. Only in two branches, which spring from the marriage of an aristocratic daughter with a man from the people, there are children in the fifth generation of whom at least a part promise a healthy progeny. Fahlbeck, too, has drawn attention to the fact that the dying out Swedish aristocracy shows no signs of striking degeneracy in the individual.