Relevant Data Obtained by Record Linkage

Examples will be given of the uses of record linkage in attempts to (a) estimate the combined importance of the known genetic diseases and of the congenital and other diseases that may be hereditary or partially so, (b) distinguish the monomeric from the multifactorial parts of this total load of disease, and (c) identify a mutation-maintained and a selection-maintained component in these two parts. 

The examples will serve in part to illustrate certain difficulties in thus neatly partitioning our load of hereditary troubles and the needs for data that have not as yet been obtained by any method. They will show, moreover, that whereas conventional approaches may be desirable to achieve the diagnostic specificity required with respect to some of the 

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