What is the first mention in historical literature of the paternal age effect?

From a paper, "Human Longevity and Parental Age at Conception",by L.A. Gavrilov and N.S. Gavrilova, 2000

Thank you to Dr. Leonid Gavrilov for sending me the link to his paper because I was wondering what the early written observations of the problems of children of advanced paternal age were.


Wilhelm Weinberg (1862 — 1937)couldn't have been the first to write of the deleterious effects of older fathers on offspring.
The Gavrilovs have a section in their paper on the historical background.

"The first mention in the historical literature suggesting a possible life-shortening effect on offspring of delayed parenting was made by the French naturalist Buffon(1826), who noted that when old men procreate "they often engender monsters, deformed children, still more defective than their father"(see Robine and Allard 1997).


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HITLER'S FATHER WAS 51 WHEN HE WAS BORN!