[3]This proposal was favourably received by the Norwegian minister Knudsen, and brought before the Storthing as a Government measure. The proposal has been accepted as part of the election programme of the Radicals, the Socialist Democrats, and all total abstinence organisations.
[3]This proposal was favourably received by the Norwegian minister Knudsen, and brought before the Storthing as a Government measure. The proposal has been accepted as part of the election programme of the Radicals, the Socialist Democrats, and all total abstinence organisations.
The class system permits of a simple, cheap, and practicable control, and, indeed, a control which is not confined to the brewery or to any single stage of preparation, but which follows the article over the whole country from its origin to its consumption. When alcoholic drinks are marked with their class and placed under State control, the consumers will themselves easily exercise the control. And the public will gradually become accustomed to form an opinion upon the influence of the various articles upon the working capacity and the health, not only of the individual, but also ofthe family and the race. State and country authorities will, with State-controlled classes, more easily see justice done on all sides. This last advantage will, naturally, only avail in those lands where the permission to sell alcoholic liquors is vested in the local authorities. The progressive class system will also give the State, the municipalities, and also private labour organisations an opportunity to support those restaurants and inns which supply nothing but pure and harmless liquors, and consumption will undergo a slow and gradual change to the lightest drinks.
At the present time the lightest kinds of beer are too heavily taxed in comparison with the heaviest kinds, and the latter in turn are too heavily taxed in comparison with brandy. From the point of view of race-hygiene, the fight must be directed especially against the fourth and most dangerous class, namely, all kinds of brandy (prohibition or Ivan Bratt's system), as well as against the mixed wines, which are so often adulterated and injurious.
ALCOHOLISM AND DEGENERACY.
Statistics from the Central Bureau for the Management of the Insane of Paris and the Department of the Seine from 1867 to 1912.
(Abstract.)
ByM. Magnan,Chief Physician to the Central Bureau, Member of the Academy of Medicine,AndDr. Fillassier.
From 1869 to 1912 the number of sick persons received at the Central Bureau of the St. Anne Asylum has gone on steadily increasing: occasionally signs of a falling off are noticed, quickly compensated by the number of entries for the following years.
Among these patients a great number are driven to the asylum by the abuse of alcoholic drinks. Some of these are simple alcoholics,i.e., those who owe their insanity entirely to excessive drinking; the others make up the numerous group of degenerates, who are for the most part descendants of alcoholics, and on whom fall all the forms of physical, intellectual, and moral degradation.
For these last, alcohol has been but the touch of the trigger which has put in action their disposition towards insanity; the attack of mania, when past, leaves revealed psychic troubles, which, but for the turning of the balance by alcohol, would have remained in the latent condition, but which, once developed, remain often for a much longer time; so we see the increasein the number of these patients—occasional drunkards—keeping pace with that of chronic alcoholics.
These will specially call forth the interest of the members of the Eugenic Congress. From the clinical point of view they exhibit great importance; for showing as they do all the episodic syndromes of degeneracy, all the mental forms of it may be seen—maniacal, melancholic, idiotic: insanities polymorphous or systematic, fixed ideas, monomanias connected with words or numbers, every sort of phobia, obsession, impulse, and symptomatic manifestation of great importance. When their objective lies in sexual perversion, theft, arson, murder, etc., these various states raise the most delicate questions whether from the point of view of philosophy, psychology, sociology, or forensic medicine.
This class of society, in the grip of this poison, is unfortunately not sterile; their miserable descendants come to dock in the asylum; so much so that if we mass together the various elements, if we add the unfortunates permanently disabled, such as epileptics, and the increasing crowd of feeble-minded, idiotic, tuberculous children, the mind recoils aghast at the gravity of the danger. The necessity of an implacable war against alcoholism, which crowds our asylums, our hospitals, and our homes with insane persons, and sends a constant stream to our prisons and reformatories—such a war must be the principal aim of the Eugenics Congress.
For long the evil genius of mankind, alcoholism has to-day laid its clutch on women, and the admission figures now show their numbers on the increase every year.
Such are the lessons which may be learnt from the report of Magnan and Fillassier.
EUGENICS AND OBSTETRICS.
(Abstract.)
ByDr. Agnes Bluhm,Berlin.
1. Among the agencies under social control which impair the racial qualities of future generations, an important place is taken by the Science of Medicine, especially by Obstetrics. For the increase of obstetrics increases the incapacity for bearing children of future generations.
2. The great difference in the capacity for bearing children between the primitive and civilized races depends only in part on the lessened fitness of the latter due to the increase of skilled assistance.
3. Incapacity for bearing children can be acquired; it develops, however, abundantly on the grounds of a congenital predisposition.
4. In so far as the latter is the case, obstetrics contributes towards the diffusion of this incapacity.
5. The most serious obstacles to delivery are effected by deformities of the pelvis, in at least 90% of which heredity plays a part. In this connection, rickets, the predisposition to which is inherited, takes the foremost place.
6. German medical statistics make it appear probable that incapacity to bear children is on the increase.
7. Medical help in childbirth brings, undoubtedly, numerical advantage to the race, but it endangers the quality of the race in other ways than through the fostering of unfitness for bearing.
8. The danger of the increase of incapacity for bearing through the increase of assistance in childbirth can be combatted:—
(a) Through the renunciation of descendants by women unfitted to bear children.
(b) Through an energetic campaign against rickets, to which only the predisposition can be inherited.
(c) Through the permeation of obstetrics with the spirit of eugenics, so that the obstetrician no longer proceeds according to a settled rule (living mother and living child), but in each separate case takes into consideration the interests of the race.
HEREDITY AND EUGENICS IN RELATION TO INSANITY.
(Abstract.)
ByF. W. Mott, M.D., F.R.S.,Physician to Charing Cross Hospital and Pathologist to the London County Asylums.
What is insanity? Every case of insanity is a biological problem, the solution of which depends upon a knowledge of what a man was born with—Nature—and what has happened after birth—Nurture. The increase of registered insanity in London; the causes of the increase. (1) The standard of insanity has been raised. (2) The increase of accommodation for reception of the insane. The diminishing death rate in asylums causing a progressive accumulation. The diminished number of recoveries. (3) The large proportion of old people admitted to asylums formerly in the infirmaries.
Nurture.—The correlation of pauperism, insanity and feeble-mindedness, alcohol, syphilis, and tuberculosis in relation to insanity and feeble-mindedness. Congenital mental deficiency as distinguished from hereditary mental deficiency. Chronic poisoning of the blood by these agencies inrelation to a lowered specific vitality of the germ cells. Environment in relation to mental energy and will power.
Nature.—The study of pedigrees in hospital and asylum patients showing the importance of heredity in nervous and mental diseases. The nature of the neuropathic tendency; its transmission in different forms of nervous and mental disease in successive generations. Its latency and re-appearance in stocks. Relation of neurasthenia to the neuropathic taint. Conclusions arrived at in relation to heredity and insanity from a study by a card system of 3,118 related persons who are at present, or who have been, in the London County asylums. Among the 20,000 inmates at present resident, 715 are so closely related as parents and offspring or brothers and sisters. Nature is always trying to end or mend a degenerate stock if left to itself. Analysis of data regarding first attack of insanity in 464 parents and their 508 offspring; the signal tendency to the occurrence of the disease in a more intense form and at an earlier age in the offspring. This "antedating" or "anticipation" in relation to Nature's process of elimination of the unfit. Nearly 50 per cent. of the offspring affected 20 years earlier than the parent. The same found in uncles and aunts with nephews and nieces, only not nearly so marked. Seeing that the unfit are at present able to survive; does nature end or mend degenerate stocks, or have the lines of neuropathic inheritance only been partially cut off by this tendency to "anticipation"? What we want to know is: What is the fate of all the offspring of an insane parent or parents; for there are a great many facts which show that a disease may be latent and re-appear in a stock when the conditions of mating or environment are unfavourable? A collection of pedigrees is required which will prove conclusively that the offspring of insane parents, who are free from the insane manifestations during adolescence, will breed children who will not become insane. Supposing it were shown that cases discharged as recovered had the seeds of insanity, by the fact that their progeny were feeble-minded, epileptic, or insane, it would be a clear indication of taking measures to prevent them handing on the disease. Recurrent insanity—the birth of children in the sane intervals. Analysis of pedigrees with a dual neuropathic inheritance of maternal and paternal stocks compared with single neuropathic inheritance. Conclusion that a child born of neuropathic inheritance in both ancestral stocks stands, on an average, the chance of being insane four times as great as when only one stock is affected. Are there any types of insanity especially liable to be transmitted in the same form or another form? The prediction of the racial value of an individual inheritance can only be predicted by a study of what a man was born with—Nature, and what happened after birth—Nurture.
THE PLACE OF EUGENICS IN THE MEDICAL CURRICULUM.
(Abstract.)
ByH. E. Jordan,Chairman of the Eugenics Section of the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality.
The Science of Eugenics deserves a place in the medical curriculum for three reasons. Firstly: Medicine is fast becoming a science of the prevention of weakness and morbidity; their permanent not temporary cure, their racial eradication rather than their personal palliation. Eugenic conduct is undeniably a factor in attaining the speedy achievement of the end of racial health. Eugenics, embracing genetics, is thus one of the important disciplines among the future medical sciences. The coming physician must have adequate training in matters relating to heredity and Eugenics. Secondly: as the general population becomes better educated in matters of personal and racial health and hygiene it will more and more demand advice regarding the prevention of weakness in themselves and their offspring. The physicians are logically the men who must give it. Thirdly: physicians will be more efficient public servants if they approach their work with the Eugenic outlook on life.
Instruction in Eugenics, in the form of a number of special lectures on the subject, is already given in some of our medical schools. This indicates at least that the need is felt and the importance of such knowledge to the best physician recognised. Since not all of the better medical schools give such courses, however, we may infer that there are obstacles in the way. What is the nature of these?
One such may be the lack of adequate preparation on the part of the students in the fundamentals of biology to properly comprehend the import and application of Eugenic facts. This obstacle is speedily being removed; for considerable biological training is already a medical course prerequisite. But there may be a lack of properly prepared teachers to present this subject to even properly prepared medical students. This obstacle is also fast disappearing. Once the demand for this kind of help is voiced, there will appear properly trained teachers to instruct physicians.
Another obstacle may be raised by short-sighted and self-seeking physicians, for whom less illness and weakness may mean less work and a reduced income. But this is, perhaps, only a relatively very small factor in, and also only a passing phase of, the opposition, and will soon correct itself.
The most encouraging prospect for this new scheme of activity is the deep interest shown by young medical students in matters of heredity and Eugenics.
A HEALTHY SANE FAMILY SHOWING LONGEVITY IN CATALONIA.
(Abstract.)
ByProfessor I. Valenti Vivo.
I. A healthy family showing longevity in Catalonia: the greater part of them died over 60 years of age from acute sickness. All belonged to the districts of Barcelona and Gerona. A record of their ability in medical science, art and agriculture, their average fertility.
II. Communication on Biometrika: Licentiates in medical science, 50 scholars, 1910: 70 in 1912. Dates: Cephalic index, stature, span, dynamometer, age, district.
SOME REMARKS ON BACKWARD CHILDREN.
(Abstract.)
By Dr.Raoul Dupuy.
When we speak of a backward child, we mean any subject which is arrested or retarded more or less completely in its bodily, psychical, and sensorial evolution, in consequence of congenital and acquired lesions, or simply in consequence of physiological troubles, which concern, either at the same or a different time, the brain and the glands of internal secretion (the thyroid, the hypophysis, the suprarenals, and the genital glands). The cerebral lesions, practically incurable in the present state of science, produce "atropic backwardness" the functional troubles of the brain, or those caused by the glands of internal secretion, which can be modified by "combined organotherapy" produce dystrophic backwardness. We also, however, find mixed types, half of the one and half of the other, which are similarly susceptible of improvement. The number, and above all the variety of the types of dystrophic backwardness, makes a general classification of them impossible. The study of their bodily, psychical and sensorial anomalies proves that in most of the manifestations of backwardness and immaturity, these children present perversions of evolution which have a common bearing on the development of body, mind and spirit. Although apparently different from one another, these backward persons, whether the mischief be corporal, psychical or sensorial, show pathological peculiarities, which prove that the cause of their various dystrophies have a similar origin, and that they often arise from defective function of the sympathic system which appears to be brought into action by the internal glands. The backward children consist of intoxicated, under-grown or anæmic persons, who, besides, suffer from retention of substances, which ought normally to be eliminated, chiefly the chlorides and phosphates (in cases of apathy) or the hyper excretion of the same substances (in cases of instability). Moreover, the combined organotherapy ought to be considered as a "perfect touchstone" of dystrophy, and if applied according to certain rules, it gives results which are more complete and more certain than thyroid organotherapy by itself. It goes without saying that a special training is necessary for the intellectual "backwards"; but before any attempt at education, it is necessary to treat their bodily deficiencies, and to place them in the special schools with the boarding system, where they will be under the eye both of the doctor and of the teacher.
FIRST INTERNATIONALEUGENICS CONGRESS,
LONDON,
July 24th to July 30th, 1912,
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON,
SOUTH KENSINGTON.
CATALOGUE
OF
THE EXHIBITION.
CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., Ltd.,227-239Tooley Street, London, S.E.
References in the Index refer to the Alphabetical Enumeration in the margin of each page of the Catalogue.
The Exhibition Committee desire to take this opportunity of expressing their thanks to the Exhibitors for the loan of their exhibits. They desire specially to acknowledge the courtesy of Professor von Gruber for giving permission to make use of Translations from the Catalogue of the International Congress of Race Hygiene held in Dresden last year.
INDEX TO EXHIBITS.