In recent years various surgical procedures have been attempted to improve the cerebral function of mentally retarded or cerebral palsied children. One of these is the anastomosis of the carotid artery and jugular vein in an effort to improve the cerebral blood flow. This has been reported to have some degree of success, but the results are of questionable value because of the necessary lack of suitable controls. In this paper are presented the case histories of such an operation on identical twins, one operated and the second serving as a perfect control.

The family history of the twins was significant in that there was a strong history of mental disease on the father's side. Several members of his family had been confined to mental institutions. No clinical diagnoses are known but at least one was known to be a sexual pervert. The father had been in a mental institution before and after the birth of the twins and had received electric shock therapy, with no demonstrable improvement. He also was a sexual pervert. The parents were divorced when the twins were twenty months old. Before and after the divorce the twins and their mother were subjected to physical violence by the father. The twins were said to be extremely fearful of the father. There were no other children, and no other pregnancies.

Pregnancy was uneventful. Delivery was at term following a five day labor. Donald, the twin who was subsequently operated, was born first with a birth weight of six pounds, seven ounces. David, born a few minutes later, weighed six pounds, eight ounces.

In the family on study the Madelung deformity has been transmitted trough three generations as a dominant monomerous sex controlled ereditary factor with minor expression in the male sex.

This is to be considered as the most frequent type of hereditary transmission of the deformity.

Monozigotic twin-girls 6 8/12 years old, one right-handed girl and the other left-handed, present petit mal seizures, appeared contemporaneusly when the twin-girls were 5 years old. The Eleccal tracing of petit mal with these troencephalogram shows a typicaracteristics: in the left hemisphere of the right-handed girl and in the right of the left-handed girl there is a preponderance of attivity.

One sister of the twis-girls, 8 years old, has a tracing with epilectical activity spike-wawe 3 per second of high voltage; she never had clinical seizures.

The mother's, 34 years old, present a tracing on activation, with teta activity 7 per second of low voltage.

The tracing of the father, 33 years old, is negative.

The tracing of the maternal-grand mother, 67 years old, present on activation, a light dysrithmia in the Pa O. right seat.

The AA take from these dates some considerations about the question of the heredity in the Epilepsy and conclude on the base of their researches that they could favour the conception that existe in the epilepsy a functional miopragie of the brain, on hereditary base. These miopragies are, probably, connected with one functional differentiation deficiency of determined structures of the central-nervous-system.

After having stressed the importance of the hereditary problem in the field of dento-maxillary orthodontics, the A. considers hereditary evidence of the dento-maxillary anomalies and gives a review of literature on the subject.

He further considers the dento-maxillary anomalies trasmitted by genes, dominant and recessive, conected with sex and finally a few cases treated by him personally.

They are cases of family and twin, hypodontia, macrodontia, rotation and twisting, bad positions, hypodevelopment of a halfarcade, prognathism and overbite.

In a patient the authors observed the following association of anomalies: bilateral hydrophthalmos with microcornea pseudo-plana, a thick-set somatic pattern, a small lower yaw, arterial hypertension, diabetes, disseminated intracranial calcifications, electro-encephalographic disturbances and neurological pseudo-extrapyramidal lesion.

His brother shows the following association of anomalies: unilateral hydraphthalmos, a thick-set somatic pattern, a small lower jaw, arterial hypertension, diabetes, digitiform impressions on the RX of the skull and neurological pseudo-extrapyramidal lesions.

The mother and grandmother of these two patients both showed a trembling of head and limbs, even as diabetes; by this means a dominant and polyphenic hereditary transmission must be accepted.

The A. presents the case of two sisters, both affected by mixed juvenile diabetes: diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus.

Three of their brothers died of diabetes millitus.

After discussing different etiological hypotheses, the A. indicates the hereditary one as the most likely.

Probably, in the case of the two sisters, there was an association of two hereditary processes, independent of one another, but coexistent.

On the 21st and 22nd of May 1955 a congress of twins took place in Oirschot (Nederland). The initiative for this remarkable assembly came from the secretary of the local Sportsclub Orion, Mr. Louwers, who himself is a half of a twin. In order to add glamour to the anniversary of this club it was thought to achieve this by inviting twins. This gathering was a great success for over 300 twins from different countries took possession for several days of this quiet town in Brabant, The original intention was to offer a programme of social activities including excursions, musical evenings, competitions and dancing. The international Press had given a great deal of publicity to this Congress whiel from a cultural point of view was successful.

The total number of twins which took part was 327 (654 persons). The countries which were represented were as follows:

Holland, 229, Germany 61, Belgium 21, Saarland 4, Austria 4, France 2, Sweden 2, Switzerland 2, Finland 1, Italy 1. The average age of the participants was 29,1 years, the oldest being 82 and the youngest 15. Total number were 167 girls and 155 boys. The number of mixed twins was small (38) so that there as a rather strong tendency towards twins of the same sex. Similarly there was also a tendency for identical twins but this was not certain because not all the twins of the same sex could be actually identified by anthropological methods. After examination it was almost certain that 80 were one-egg twins but most probably there were more. This has strenghtened our opinion that also in the public eye only those twins are considered genuine which are physically and mentally the same. Since 375 twins had unselectively taken part, in the congress, it would have been expected that at least a 100 would have been mixed twins, in fact there were only 38.