Of mice and children: Reminiscences of a teratogeneticist.

I was conceived in a little log cabin on the shores of Lake Kejimakujik, which may be why I love the lakes and woods of Nova Scotia so much. My mother neither drank nor smoked (then) and the pregnancy was uneventful, except that my parents moved to Norwich, Connecticut, where in 1920 I was born and lived for 9 months. My zygodactylous toes were hidden at first from my mother, for fear she would think her firstborn son defective, but since my father had them too (as well as my grandfather and Aunt Eva) she was not surprised. Perhaps my web toes account for my love of genetics and teratology (and swimming?), but I do not recall in my youth a particular interest in either heredity or abnormal development.