ROLE OF ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE IN CAUSING MONGOLISM

Although mongolism is now in its ninety-first year as a medical subject,1its origin remains obscure. More than a score of theories have been proposed to explain it; among them is the idea that the ages of the parents may in some way be responsible. For example, the parents may have been too old or too young at the birth of the child; a great discrepancy may exist between their ages; the child may be a first-born, subject to all the well known hazards of that birth position, or he may be the last-born after a long line of pregnancies. Again, a long interval preceding birth has been thought a cause; in this case the afflicted child appears after a period of reduced and perhaps defective fertility. This has brought up another factor, namely, the possible relation of low fertility in certain women to mongolism. Lastly, there is the