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The Effects of Parental Consanguinity and Inbreeding in Hirado, Japan III. Vision and Hearing

1970; Karger Publishers; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1159/000152303

1423-0062

James V. Neel, W.J. Schull, Tsuyoshi Kimura, Yosuke Tanigawa, Manabu Yamamoto, Akira Nakajima,

Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics

The effects of parental consanguinity, age, and sex on defects of the eye and ear, accomodation, mean visual acuity, and mean decibels of hearing loss at four frequencies have been investigated in a series of Middle School children and their parents on Hirado Island, Japan. In the children the effect of paternal and maternal inbreeding on these same indicators has also been investigated. The numbers available for the various analyses after eliminations for incompleteness of records, and confining the analysis to children where socioeconomic data are complete, are given in table III. Age and sex effects are encountered at high levels of statistical significance, but, unlike the results on Hirado with respect to a variety of other indicators [Schull et al., 1970; Neel et al., 1970], socioeconomic effects are negligible. None of the regressions on consanguinity or inbreeding is individually significant, nor is there any consistent pattern to the totality of the regressions. On the other hand, the sampling errors are such that the data cannot be said to conflict with the significant positive findings regarding consanguinity effects in a previous study in Hiroshima and Nagasaki [Schull and Neel, 1965].