Mode of inheritance as indicated by one-sided and two-sided familial taint: with an application to schizophrenia.

Among his various approaches to an understanding of schizophrenic inheritance, whether dominant or recessive, Rüdin (1916) also compared the respective frequencies of one-sided and two-sided familial taint. Essen-Möller (1949) tried the idea on another sample, but neither of us arrived at a definite choice. Later on Slater (1966) surprisingly demonstrated that unilaterality is typical not only of dominant but also of polygenic transmission. In the present paper we adjust Slater's computation and, in so doing, accentuate his result. We also find a similar preponderance of unilaterality on a recessive model, and offer an explanation for this. The findings substantially reduce the efficacy of laterality of taint as an indicator of mode inheritance.