======================================================= ===== =====
Decrease of frequency of Marriage. Men: 57 39
Of 100 adults there marry: Women: 61 49
Decrease of duration of life. Men: 38.5 24.0
Average duration of life in years: Women: 33.5 32.0
High mortality of offspring.
Of 100 births there died before the 20th year:
Fathers, the only members of their Sons 45.5
generation who married. Grandchildren 55.4
Mothers, with childless brothers. Sons 42.0
Grandchildren 46.1
Reversal of proportion of sexes born.
To every 100 girls there are born boys:
In normal families: 106
In dying-out families: 90
Disturbance to Proportion of Sexes among the
Children.
Normal: 106
Generation of sonless fathers: 160
" " " mothers: 93
Key to Table
------------
[A] Normal families.
[B] Families in process of extinction.
Figure C 44.]
[Sidenote: C 45]
In this connection another figure, C 45, by von den Velden ought to
be mentioned. He shows, from investigations made by von Riffel, that
the +physical condition of childless couples is on the average
inferior to that of fertile parents+. This, however, by no means
holds good in every case. Evidence to the contrary is given by the
pedigree of an aristocratic family which has died out in the male line.
It may be looked upon as typical. One generation (the second), with
three times as many grown up men than women, produces only four boys
(44% of the children), of whom two reach maturity. With the fourth
generation the male issue dies out. Though a large majority of the
members of all three generations (2-4th) have good health and attain
to an exceptionally high age, most of the female lines also die out.
Only in two branches, which spring from the marriage of an aristocratic
daughter with a man from the people, there are children in the fifth
generation of whom at least a part promise a healthy progeny. Fahlbeck,
too, has drawn attention to the fact that the dying out Swedish
aristocracy shows no signs of striking degeneracy in the individual.
This fact is of the greatest theoretical and practical importance
because it proves that there exists, up to a certain degree, an
independent degeneration of the germ plasm, even as the germ plasm
may remain unaffected by damage to the soma. That such a one-sided
degeneration of the germ plasm with respect to the power of
reproduction may take place among animals has been known for a long
time.
In particular, Chs. Darwin has collected facts of this kind in his
"Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication." For civilised
peoples it is a matter for reflection that with animals even slight
deviations from their customary "natural" mode of living may lead to
such serious consequences.
RACE-HYGIENE.
[Sidenote: C 46 & 47]
As the +nature and aims of race-hygiene+ are still unknown in
wide circles it will be useful to show in Tables C 46 and C 47, by
A. Ploëtz, what its position is amongst other sciences and what the
various branches of its activity consist in.
Many theoretical workers hold that the most important mission or
race-hygiene is to fight against Therapeutics and Hygiene of the
individual, for about these they have the most serious misgivings.
They consider, that by maintaining inferior variations up to the age
of reproduction, the average quality of the race must suffer and
that to certain defects--which otherwise would rapidly disappear--an
opportunity is given to spread through an entire people. This point
of view, short sighted as it may be, must be examined into. It
appears to be forgotten that on the one hand hygiene is powerless in
cases of a high degree of degeneration and that on the other hand
hygiene, by prevention of illness, does away with a number of causes
of inferiority. Finally it appears to be entirely overlooked that
with the best inherent qualities and unfavourable surroundings the
individual development may be poor and stunted. Of what use are the
highest potentialities if they remain latent? The main point is that
so far convincing proofs of the preponderant harmfulness of hygiene are
entirely absent. (S. Gruber, Heredity, Selection and Hygiene. Deutsche
med. Wochenschr, 1909).
[Sidenote: C 48]
[Illustration:
The Increasing Frequency of Obstetrical Operations and their
Significance to the Race.
(Based on the official statistics of Baden by Dr. Agnes Bluhm.)
Figure C 48.]
Dr. Agnes Bluhm contributes to the question of the deterioration
of the race by therapeutic measures in dealing in Figure C 48 with
"+The increasing frequency of surgical operations in connection
with childbirth and its significance for the race.+" She writes
in explanation "The number of doctors having increased relatively
much more than the number of the population, it follows that for a
growing number of women medical assistance at childbirth is available.
To this must be added that progress in surgical technique, above all
the diminished danger of infection, allows of a much more frequent
operative interference with good results for mother and child.
Both these facts find expression in the reduction of the number
of stillbirths. The purpose of these operations being to assist a
diminished birth capacity in women, and this diminished capacity
arising partly from constitutional and consequently hereditary factors,
this question suggests itself: Is the average birth capacity of women
progressively diminished by the fact that an increasing number of
women, more or less unfit for childbirth, are artificially assisted
in bringing forth living children who inherit this weakness from the
mother?"
"Our table attempts to answer this question on the basis of official
Midwifery Statistics compiled in the Grand Duchy of Baden reaching back
to 1871, that is the beginning of the antiseptic era.
"To avoid the errors, which small figures might lead to, each
calculation has been based on the average figures of a lengthy period.
The material dealt with comprises over two million births."
[Sidenote: C 48-1]
"Figure 1 shows the +increasing frequency of all childbirth
operations taken together+. The period 1871 to 1879 shows an
average of 4.38 operations to every 100 births, the period 1900 to 1907
up to 8.12 operations to every 100 births."
[Sidenote: C 48-2]
"Figure 2 shows the +frequency of each class of operation in every
1,000 births+. Each class of operation shows an increase in number,
but the increase has not been uniform throughout the various classes."
[Sidenote: C 48-3]
"Figure 3, A and B, shows the +share of each class of operation in
the total number for the various periods+. A more leading part is
taken by aftermath operations, by artificially induced premature birth,
by perforation of the head and by Caesarean section on the living.
Aftermath operations depend (like the use of the forceps) to such a
degree on the teachings of the various schools for midwifery (and on
the time at the doctor's disposal) that they can hardly serve as a
standard of birth capacity. The Caesarean section, too, can hardly be
taken as a guide, as a much wider view is taken now of the indications
for this operation. But the equally increasing numbers of perforations
of the head and artificially induced premature birth are well worthy
of attention. For these two operations exclude one another. With the
existing tendency to avoid perforation of the head by artificially
inducing premature birth, a rise in the curve of premature births
should correspond with a sinking of the perforation curve. 1871 to
1879 a maximum of the former actually coincides with a minimum of the
latter; but from there on both curves rise, though not in the same
degree. Premature births have become since then (see Fig. 2) more than
eight times as frequent; perforations of the head have trebled; and
dismemberments of the child have doubled. This fact must be considered
as a sign of lessened birth capacity."
[Sidenote: C 48-4]
"Figure 4 shows the +decrease of the total number of
stillbirths+."
[Sidenote: C 48-5]
"Figure 5 gives the +share which abnormal position of the child has
in this total+, and a comparison of the two shows that whilst the
total has decreased by 1.42% the decrease (1880 to 1889) has been 2.35%
in the case of stillbirth through abnormal position. The conclusion is,
that there is now more opportunity for hereditary transmission of the
tendency to faulty position of the child than three to four decades
ago."
[Sidenote: C 48-6]
"But Figure 6 proves that up to now an +increased inheritance of
this tendency has not taken place+. The curves of these positions
not only show irregularities but (with the exception of cross births) a
tendency to sink."
"Recapitulation. The growing frequency of surgically assisted births
cannot be taken as evidence of a diminished birth capacity, but is
closely connected with the growing number of doctors. Against the
indications of a diminished birth capacity stand at the moment those
which previously could be taken as pointing in the opposite direction.
It would, therefore, appear that medical interference at birth has
brought to the race advantages as to quantity and no drawbacks as
to quality. But it is probable that the picture will change during
the coming decades, because only then will the daughters of mothers
who could not have brought forth living children without surgical
assistance become themselves mothers. The renunciation of motherhood
on the part of the women least suited for this function and the war
against rickets might act as preventatives."
The great anxiety about the elimination of the severest struggle for
existence is based on the undoubtedly erroneous fundamental conception
that the organism is a sorry product of necessity which can barely
manage to maintain a laborious existence by the constant straining
of all its faculties, and that it requires the continuous use of
the whip of necessity to prevent an organism from giving way to its
inherent tendency to degeneration. In fact, however, no organism is
conceivable which has not the "Tendency" to maintain itself and to
react accordingly. There are many facts which prove that a wealth
of capacities and tendencies is dormant in organisms which for
innumerable generations have not been active, or, perhaps, have, never
functioned in every possible way, and that, therefore, if the occasion
arises replacements or accommodations of an unprecedented character
may occur. In an unprejudiced system of race-hygiene these facts must
not be overlooked. The exhibition in this section gives two specially
striking instances; the one from animal the other from plant life.
[Sidenote: C 49]
To begin with Figure C 49 gives a diagrammatic representation of the
+development of the eye of a vertebrate+--after K. Kraepelin
(taken from "Experimentelle Biologie II., T. v. Curt Thesing,
Leipzig, Teubner, 1911")--which shows that the lens is formed out
of an invagination of the cornea and the retina by an extension of
the brain. In the lower part of the plate the various phases of the
+reconstruction of the lens out of the iris+ are shown, after
it had been removed by a cataract operation from the eye of a Triton
larva. (This experiment was carried out by Gustav Wolff.)[A] Thus an
organ which normally is not concerned with the formation of the lens
takes charge of its regeneration.
[Footnote A: Studies in the Physiology of Development II. Archiv. für
Entwicklungs mechanic der Organismen, XII. Vol., 3 Part, 1901.]
A large number of tables deal with the influence of the numerical
position in the progeny, with the number of births and the interval
between births, on the health of the children, partly acting alone,
partly in combination with the influence of the manner of nourishment
during infancy.
[Sidenote: C 50]
+Numerical position in family and infantile mortality+, after
Geissler. According to these statistics, the fifth child of a mother
has materially less vitality than the first four, the second and third
children have the most; but this does not agree with other statistics.
[Sidenote: C 51]
According to Riffel's investigations--+influence of the numerical
position of the child and the age of the parents at the time of
marriage on infant mortality+, after v.d. Velden, a material
difference between the mortality of the three earliest born children
and the three next born is only shown if both parents at the time of
marriage have attained a certain age (man over 28, woman over 25); only
the seventh to ninth show under all circumstances a materially greater
mortality than the earlier children. The children of more aged parents
show a materially greater mortality than those of younger parents.
The number of children in a family up to the eleventh has no material
influence on infant mortality, only in families with twelve children or
more a materially greater number of children perish before the fifth
year.
[Illustration:
Relation of Number of Births to Infant Mortality.
Percentage of Deaths to 100 Births.
Died during the first year of life.
Geissler.
26,429 births to 5,236 marriages of members of Saxon coalminers' funds.
(Some still-born infants, and children of marriages to which there were
only one or two births, are not included).
Died before reaching the age of 0.09 of a year, _i.e._, a little more
than a month.
[Note: under the first graph in figure] The mortality of the 1st, 2nd,
3rd and 4th child is below the average. Greatest vitality shown by 2nd
and 3rd child.
[Note: under the second graph in figure] The mortality of the 2nd, 3rd,
4th and 5th child is below the average. Greatest vitality shown by 2nd,
3rd, and 4th child.
Figure C 50.]
[Illustration:
Influence of the Number of Births and the Age of the Parents at the
Time of Marriage on Infant Mortality.
(From Riffel's Tables, after v. d. Velden).
Key to Table ------------
Percentage of Children Born. 1-3 4-6 7-9 Children
=================================== ==== ==== ==== { Children of all
28.8 30.5 38.5 { parents. { { Husband over 28 or Died before { wife
over 25 years 38.5 41.6 53.4 reaching { old. 6th year. { { Husband over
28 and { wife over 25 years 41.5 51.7 64.7 { old.
Influence of the Number of Children Born to a Family on Infant
Mortality.
3-5 6-8 9-11 12-15 Children ==== ==== ==== ===== Percentage of children
born Died before reaching 5th year 25.5 27.7 22.7 44.3
Figure C 51.]
[Sidenote: C 52]
+Number of conceptions and conception losses+, by Dr. Agnes
Bluhm; the exhibitor gives the following explanation--
Hamburger's material deals with 1,042 marriages of the labouring
classes in Berlin, with a total of 7,261 conceptions (an average of
6.97 conceptions for each woman); the material of Bluhm comprises
856 marriages of the wealthier and educated German middle and higher
classes with a total of 3,856 conceptions (averaging 4.50 conceptions
to each woman). Hamburger has counted as conception losses only
miscarriages, premature births, stillbirths, or deaths from illness
before the completion of the sixteenth year. Bluhm has included all
those up to the twentieth year. Both have only included marriages
which have been contracted at least twenty years back. As the births
in these marriages apparently date back to twenty years, all living
children are reckoned as survivors or conception results, even if they
have not attained the sixteenth or twentieth year respectively. This
has influenced the result optimistically, but as it has done so with
both authors alike, the comparison of their results is admissible.
[Sidenote: C 52-1]
Figure 1 shows the +conception losses in marriages of varying
conception numbers+ (Curve A, Hamburger's working-men's families;
Curve B, Bluhm's well-to-do families); both curves confirm Hamburger's
words that "the percentage of the survivors gets smaller in proportion
as the conception number increases." The mounting of Curve B in the
families with ten births is probably a delusion brought about by a
very small number. In the marriages with eleven or more births there
are lost with the well-to-do one quarter and with the working-classes
nearly two-thirds of the conceptions up to the twentieth or sixteenth
year respectively.
[Sidenote: C 52-2]
Figure 2 represents the +share which miscarriages and premature
births have in the conception losses in marriages of different degrees
of productiveness+ (Curve A, Hamburger; Curve B, Bluhm). Amongst
the Berlin labouring classes on the average 17.89 per cent. of all
conceptions are lost through miscarriage and premature birth; for the
wealthier German families the figure is 7.59 per cent.
[Sidenote: C 52-3]
Figure 3 shows the +share which deaths and stillbirths have in
conception losses+. With the labouring classes it amounts on the
average to 32.75 per cent. (Curve A), and in the wealthier families to
10.55 per cent. (Curve B).
[Sidenote: C 52-4]
Figure 4. To investigate whether the continuous decrease in the
percentage of the survivors, going hand in hand with the increase of
maternal conceptions, is caused by the constitutional inferiority
of the offspring as the numerical position increases, Bluhm has
established, in dealing with her material, the loss for each numerical
position (first, second, third, etc., conceptions respectively). If
this were the case, Curve A, which gives the loss according to the
frequency of conception in each marriage, would have to be identical
with Curve B, which gives the loss of first, second, and third, etc.,
conceptions, but this is by no means the case, for only at a very high
numerical position of the conception the curves begin to be parallel.
This proves that Hamburger's "the percentage of the survivors gets
smaller in proportion as the conception number increases" is not
a biological law but only expresses a social phenomenon. With the
increasing number of children there is a decrease in the value of
each individual childlife. The mother is less careful about avoiding
miscarriages; she devotes, and must necessarily devote, less care to
each child; and the risk of infectious diseases which are a frequent
cause of death during infancy increases.
[Sidenote: C 53]
How little the increasing mortality of the later born children up to
the tenth child is based on a biological law is shown in Figure C 53.
+Numerical position of birth and infant mortality up to the age
of five in princely families+, by Ploëtz; 463 seventh to ninth
children show the same mortality as the 614 first born.
Pearson endeavored to prove a high degree of inferiority in the first
born, physically and intellectually as well as morally. But his
results are very open to attack, as Weinberg has recently shown; one
is reminded of Pearson's results in Crzellitzer's Figure C 54--first
and later born. Crzellitzer writes thus about this--"A +high degree
of myopia+ is +more frequent amongst first born+ than among
later children. The disadvantage of the first born in respect of
myopia is based on a greater hereditary taint and on no other factor.
Where there is no hereditary taint about one quarter to one-third
are affected, no matter whether first, second, third, etc., born.
Also in well-to-do families, where the age of fathers at the time of
procreation is materially higher, the first born are more frequently
myopic than their brothers or sisters."
[Illustration:
First and Later-Born.
Percentage of Frequency of Extreme Short-sightedness.
(After Dr. Crzellitzer.)
Child
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
============================== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
1,246 children from 216
working-class families. 46.4 33.7 31.4 26.6 26.5 26.0 15.5 18.7
1,246 children from 216
working-class families,
classified according to
presence or absence of
inherited tendency to
short-sightedness.
With inherited tendency 61.6 34.9 27.7 25.5 31.5 32.0 10.5 6.7
Without inherited tendency 35.9 33.7 34.3 24.6 25.0 22.2 19.0 23.3
206 children from 45 well-to-do
families. 63.1 36.1 36.0 36.0 20.0
Figure C 54.]
A large amount of material has been treated by W. Weinberg, in which
tuberculous and non-tuberculous families are compared.
[Sidenote: C 55 & 56]
Figure C 55--+influence of numerical position of birth on infant
mortality+ and Figure C 56--+mortality of the first and later
born+. Weinberg writes concerning these: "The parallelograms in
the first row indicate for each position in order of birth how many
children out of every hundred die before the age of 20. On this,
however, the difference in the mortality in families with different
numbers of children has an influence. To counteract this, it has been
calculated how many children in each position would die if within each
family the number of children had no influence, and the actual number
of deaths expressed as a percentage of the expectation calculated in
this way gives parallelograms to the second row. After eliminating the
influence exercised by the size of the family, the increase of the
mortality with the higher birth number appears considerably smaller.
Figure C 56, which compares the mortality of the first and last born
children, is to a certain extent a test of this. This shows clearly a
considerably higher death rate in the last born. Both figures indicate
that children of the same numerical position of birth show a higher
mortality, if from tuberculous families."
[Illustration:
Mortality of Children According to Sequence of Birth.
3,129 Tuberculous and 1,830 Non-Tuberculous Families of Stuttgart,
1873-1889 (after Weinberg).
Key to Tables
-------------
[N] - non-tuberculous
[T] - tuberculous
Paternal family.
No. of child Percentage of children Death rates expressed in
according to born alive who died before relative figures corrected for
sequence of reaching their 20th year. differences in the death rates
birth. in families differing in size.
============ ========================== ==============================
[N] [T] [N] [T]
===== ===== ===== =====
1 33.9 40.6 90.5 91.3
2 37.4 44.4 101.0 99.5
3 49.4 45.4 109.0 103.5
4 40.1 47.9 105.0 103.0
5 39.5 49.7 101.0 104.0
6 43.5 52.5 103.0 107.0
7 39.0 51.2 92.0 105.0
8 43.2 54.1 96.0 111.5
9 50.8 59.1 101.0 115.0
10 40.2 60.2 101.0 113.5
11-12 50.0 51.7 101.0 97.0
13-18 64.4 52.8 111.0 107.0
Maternal family.
No. of child Percentage of children Death rates expressed in
according to born alive who died before relative figures corrected for
sequence of reaching their 20th year. differences in the death rates
birth. in families differing in size.
============ ========================== ==============================
[N] [T] [N] [T]
===== ===== ===== =====
1 34.6 40.0 92.0 87.0
2 36.5 46.6 96.0 97.0
3 40.6 49.0 107.0 104.0
4 41.7 57.1 107.0 111.0
5 37.6 50.3 91.0 104.0
6 41.8 53.8 97.5 108.0
7 51.3 52.5 116.0 107.0
8 45.9 54.0 102.0 111.0
9 51.1 52.5 100.0 103.0
10 47.6 53.8 100.0 103.0
11-12 47.1 60.0 103.0 130.0
13-18 68.8 62.5 121.0 104.0
Figure C 55.]
[Illustration:
Relative Mortality of the First and Last-born.
3,129 Tuberculous and 1,830 Non-Tuberculous Families of Stuttgart,
1873-1889 (after Weinberg)
Of each 100 living-born there died before reaching their 20th year:
Non-tuberculous Tuberculous
======================= =======================
FIRST-BORN LAST-BORN FIRST-BORN LAST-BORN
========== ========= ========== =========
Paternal Family 33.9 37.2 40.6 49.9
Maternal Family 34.6 37.5 40.0 53.4
Comparison of the mortality of the First and Last-born,
The mortality of the First-born = 100.
Non-tuberculous Tuberculous
======================= =======================
FIRST-BORN LAST-BORN FIRST-BORN LAST-BORN
========== ========= ========== =========
Paternal Family 100 108 100 128
Maternal Family 100 108 100 134
Figure C 56.]
[Sidenote: C 57]
Of a materially greater influence than the numerical position of birth
or the number of children in each family is the length of interval
between births. We point at first to Figure C 57--+interval between
births and child mortality+, after Ansell and Westergaard, by Dr.
A. Bluhm. She writes in reference to it: "Ansell has demonstrated,
from the material of the National Life Assurance Society of London,
that a child has an increasingly better chance to survive his first
year, the greater the interval between his own birth and that of the
child born before him. If this interval is less than a year, the infant
mortality is double what it is when there is an interval of two years
(15.75% against 7.33%). This influence makes itself felt beyond the
age of infancy up to five years but not in so striking a manner. The
proportion becomes modified to 20% against 12%. As the influence of
the birth interval on child mortality is still very perceptible after
the tenth or later children, it may be assumed that it is not caused
exclusively by the exhaustion of the maternal organism produced by the
rapid sequence of births. The varying length of breast-feeding of the
children has probably also its influence. Though these statistics give
no data about the mode of infant feeding, it is nevertheless probable
that in those families in which there are longer intervals between
consecutive births each child is suckled for a longer period.
[Sidenote: C 58]
+Birth interval and health of the offspring+, after Riffel--v.
d. Velden.
[Sidenote: C 59]
+Influence of the length of the birth interval and the duration of
breast-feeding on infant mortality+, exhibited by Weinberg. The
author writes regarding the latter table "in proportion to the length
of the interval between two births, the mortality of the children
following decreases materially, but this relation only becomes clearly
apparent in families in which several of the children have been suckled
for more than six months."
[Sidenote: C 60, 61 62]
The intimate connection which exists between birth interval and
suckling and the great importance which suckling has under the
favourable influence of a long birth interval is shown in Dr. Agnes
Bluhm's Figures C 60, C 61, and C 62--+infant nutrition (breast
feeding), number of children and infant mortality+, after Dr.
Marie Baum. "The material is taken from the towns of Gladbach, Rheydt,
Odenkirchen and, Rheindalen, and comprises 1,495, mostly poor families,
with 9,393 cases in which the mother survived childbirth and 9,487
children born alive. In this table only 7,983 children were counted,
because the remainder had not reached the age of one year on the day of
counting. Of these 7,983, there died before the completion of the first
year 1,276, or 15.98%."
+Number of children and child mortality+: Bluhm adds:--"Figure
1 shows in Curve A the +influence of the duration of breast
feeding+; in Curve B +influence of numerical position of birth
on the mortality of the infant+. The very divergent course of
the two curves expresses the very different influence of both these
factors on mortality; the latter is almost exclusively dependent upon
the length of suckling, and shows corresponding with its increase a
continuous and steep decline down to 1.46% from a maximum number of
35%. The very slight increase of the mortality of children suckled for
six weeks compared with those who have not been breast fed at all
is immaterial (35.55% against 35.28%). These figures prove only that
breast feeding up to six weeks does not give the child any protection
against fatal diseases. The influence of the birth number hardly makes
itself felt up to the seventh child, only from the eighth onwards the
power of resistance decreases continuously but not nearly to the same
degree in which it grows with the length of breast-feeding (greatest
difference only 21%). Curve B shows a materially different course from
that of similar curves by other authors, for instance--from Geissler's
well-known curve, dealing with Saxon miners, in which not only the
first born show up less favourably than the second and third born, but
in which, from the fourth child on, the mortality increases rapidly.
The economical condition of both groups being similar (85% of Baum's
families had a maximum yearly income of £75), it is highly probable
that the difference in the curves arises from different methods of
infant feeding. In the Rhine provinces, as is also proved by Baum's
figures, the feeding is good; in Saxony, however, it is notoriously
bad. The co-relation of infant mortality with infant feeding is
very clearly illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, the former shows the
+influence of the length of suckling on the mortality of the
children classed in order of birth+, the latter +the influence
of the order of birth in connection with different lengthed periods
of suckling+. The extraordinarily regular course of all the nine
curves in Figure 2 and the extremely irregular course of the six top
curves in Figure 3 are very striking. From these figures it is shown
that the first, second and third born if breast-fed for a short time
only, or not at all, are subjected to much greater risks than the
eighth, ninth, tenth or later children, suckled for a sufficient length
of time (maximum difference 1 to 42). In the curve showing the children
who were breast fed for 39 weeks (Figure 3), the influence of the high
birth number shows only to a very small degree."
[Sidenote: C 61]
+Number of children and capacity for breast-feeding.+ Concerning
this it is remarked: "The upper curve shows what percentage of children
had to do without breast feeding, and the lower one how many enjoyed
the sufficient period of 39 weeks of breast-feeding. Though Baum's
figures are only intended to deal with the number of cases of breast
feeding and not with its duration, and though no difference is made
between exclusive and partial breast feeding, yet some conclusions
may be drawn with regard to suckling capacity. In a district where
breast feeding is as general as it is in the one examined into here,
the number of women who voluntarily renounce every attempt at suckling
must necessarily be small. The curve dealing with the children who
had no breast feeding at all is therefore likely to give a fairly
correct picture of the absolute or primary incapacity for suckling on
the mother's part; absolute incapacity does not of course mean that
the mother could not produce a single drop of milk, but that she does
not produce enough to satisfy the child, and therefore must resort to
artificial feeding. As a period of 39 weeks' feeding, even if only
partial, points to a good capacity, the lower curve may also be taken
as an expression of feeding ability. A comparison of both figures
illustrates that the milk production after the first birth is smaller
than after the following ones, and that beyond the eighth birth, it
decreases materially and continuously, probably in consequence of the
exhaustion of the maternal organism."
[Sidenote: C 62]
+The habit of breast-feeding as running in families and infant
mortality.+ With this goes the following explanation: "The two
figures illustrate the proportion of mortality of the infants in 143
bottle-feeding families and 376 breast-feeding families of the first
order. As the line could not be drawn very sharply, and as in the
bottle-feeding families there had to be included those in which as an
exception one or other child was suckled for a few days or perhaps for
a week, one can see in these groups only the expression of the habit,
but not the power of suckling. Both figures illustrate the largely
avoidable sacrifice in young lives which still goes on through a want
of knowledge and of feeling of responsibility towards the coming race.
With the absence of breast-feeding the unfavourable influence of a
very large number of children becomes much more apparent; whereas
in breast-feeding families the difference in the mortality between
medium-sized families (four to six children) and very large families
(above ten children) amounts to only 1.39%, it reaches 12.90% with
the non-suckling families. Here, if the number of children surpasses
ten, nearly every second child dies in the suckling age, and amongst
thirteen families there is not a single one which has not lost a child
in that period, whereas in breast-feeding families of the first order,
with the same large number of children, only every thirteenth child
died in infancy, and of sixteen families seven (= 43.75%) lost no
infant." The same material is treated in a different way by Dr. Marie
Baum, of Dusseldorf, in Figures C 63-66.
[Sidenote: C 63]
+As the length of the period of suckling of the preceding child
increases, there is a constant and rapid decrease in the number of
children who are born at intervals of less than one year.+ If the
preceding child was not breast-fed a new birth occurred before the
expiration of one year in 9.6 cases out of 100. With a suckling period
of one-half to three-quarters of a year of the preceding child, this
figure is reduced to 1.8 per cent., and after a still longer suckling
period to 1 per cent. Out of one hundred mothers who have only partly
or not at all suckled the preceding child, seventy must count on a
fresh birth within a period of 1-3/4 years. If the preceding child
was suckled for at least 39 weeks, only thirty-eight, and with a
suckling period of more than a year only twenty mothers have to reckon
on a fresh birth within 1-3/4 years.
Dependence of Infant Mortality on the Duration of Breast-Feeding and
the Length of Time Intervening Between Successive Births.
[Illustration: Figure C 63.]
[Sidenote: C 64]
Figure C 64 shows the +parallelism between+ the +average
length of breast-feeding and the average time between births+
within the families. A half to three-quarters of the mothers who
suckled either long enough or very long show an interval between births
of from 1-1/4 to 3 years, whereas of those who did not suckle at all,
or only did so insufficiently, only one-third belong to this group, and
figure largely in the column of lower birth intervals.
Dependence of Infant Mortality on the Average Duration of
Breast-Feeding and the Average Length of Time Intervening between the
Successive Births of the Children in a Family.
[Illustration: Figure C 64.]
[Sidenote: C 65]
Figure C 65 enables us to examine into the +influence exercised by
a longer or shorter interval after the preceding birth on the vitality
of a child+, according as to whether the child was not breast-fed
at all or only moderately or amply so. The black oblongs demonstrate
that the average infant mortality falls regularly and decisively
according to the length of time between the birth of the children
considered and their predecessors. The average mortality of infants
who are born in rapid succession--under one year, one to one and a
quarter years, amounts to over 25 and to 22 per cent. respectively,
whereas the average mortality of children with at least two years'
interval amounts only to 11 per cent. "At the same time, however, it
is observed that the influence of the length of suckling is still
greater than that of the length of time elapsing between births. Even
with an interval of three or more years, the mortality of children who
were insufficiently or not at all breast-fed was above 20 per cent.
The children who had been suckled for at least three-quarters of a
year were only very slightly influenced by this factor in all groups,
except that with a birth interval of less than one year, where the
influence of short birth intervals is not counterbalanced even by long
extended breast-feeding."
[Sidenote: C 66]
Figure C 66. "The +infant mortality within the families+ dealt
with +falls materially and evenly as the average birth intervals
lengthen+. With an average birth interval of less than one year,
one-third of the children die in the first year, but only 7 per cent.
where the average birth interval was over three years; but here also
the influence is strongly modified by the mode of feeding. With the
non-suckling families the mortality is almost 25 per cent., even
with a birth interval of more than two years. On the other hand,
when the duration of suckling is sufficient, short birth intervals
almost disappear (see Table 2), and with an average birth interval of
1-1/4 to 2 years and a suckling duration of at least half a year the
mortality remains on an extremely small scale."
[Sidenote: C 67-73]
Groth and Hahn have exhibited two large tables C 67 and C 68 and a
similar one C 69, the results of their important investigations about
+breast-feeding and mortality in the administrative districts of
Bavaria+. Groth shows in Table C 70 "+mortality of sucklings in
Bavaria+," and in Table C 71 "+breast-feeding and cancer+."
In Tables C 72 and C 73 the Groth and Hahn statistics are treated by
Dr. A. Bluhm from the point of view of the +influence of the habit
of breast-feeding on the frequency of births+. In connection with
Figure C 73 she remarks: "This diagram shows the number of bottle-fed
babies in the various Bavarian districts counted at the time of
vaccination. To give as correct a picture as possible of the probable
influence which the habit of breast-feeding has on the birth-rate
(annual number of births per 1,000 of the whole population) there are
represented on this figure by green and yellow columns the average
birth-rate for the five years, 1875 to 1879, because in that period a
record birth-rate was established, so that it may be assumed that there
was then no intentional restriction of births. We see within the four
'old Bavarian' districts, where on the average 64.1% of the babies were
not breast-fed at all, the number of births is about 4 per 1,000 of
the population higher than in the Palatinate and the three 'Frankish'
districts, which together only show 18% of non-breast-fed children."
[Sidenote: C 72 & 73]
"These two figures deal with the +influence of the length of
suckling on the birth-rate+, the longer the duration of the
suckling period, _i.e._, the higher the number of children breast-fed
for six months or more, the lower the birth-rate. This only holds good
for the country (Curve B) not for towns (Curve A). This circumstance
is explained by the fact that the voluntary restriction of births is
much more frequent in towns than in the country, where consequently
the influence of the length of the period of suckling on the birth
frequency can find much stronger expression than in towns, where,
as Curve A shows, it is entirely extinguished by artificial birth
preventatives. From both tables it results that, to prevent the
senseless waste of human life, the interval between every two births
must be more than two years; further, that it is possible to increase
it by breast-feeding; the number of births in a district is based in
the main on the larger or smaller intervals at which the women of
reproductive age have children, and it may, therefore, at the same
time, be taken as an expression of these intervals. Keeping these
two facts in view, and considering the influence of the mode of
infant feeding on infant mortality, it appears to be in the interest
of the race that by means of the long duration of breast-feeding,
the birth intervals should be extended to at least two years. The
facts established in these two tables have a considerable bearing on
race-hygiene, especially in reference to the Neomalthusian contentions
of the necessary inferiority of the later born, and as a confirmation
of the utility of breast-feeding for the reduction of birth frequency.
Extremely great appears the influence of breast-feeding on infant
mortality."
[Sidenote: C 74-78]
This importance of breast-feeding is further illustrated by Figure C
74--+duration of breast-feeding and infant mortality+, after
Dietrich; by Figure C 75--+average number of carious teeth+,
after Bunge; and by the three figures, C 76, 77, and 78--"+average
duration of breast-feeding and physical development, duration of
breast-feeding and average school reports+, and +duration
of breast-feeding and frequency of rachitic disturbances of
development+," after the extensive and valuable researches by Röse.
It must be pointed out that a far more direct connection exists between
breast-feeding, duration of suckling, infant mortality and physical
development than through the mere provision of suitable nourishment
for the child. A good suckling capacity is a symptom of a strong
constitution which is transmitted from mother to child. Examination of
Röse's table offers this suggestion.
[Sidenote: C 79-82]
+The importance of the hereditary constitution+ (which he
considers is dependent on soil and climate) +as regards infant
mortality+ v. Vogel expresses in four maps of Bavaria (Figures
79-82), so which he has furnished the following comments (contained in
the pamphlet, "Der Örtliche Stand der Säuglingsterblichkeit in Bayern,"
Munich, Piloty and Loehle, 1911): "The district of the highest infant
mortality in Bavaria is inhabited by a population of small height,
small fitness for military service, and high tuberculous mortality. The
reverse holds good on the whole for the district with a low mortality.
[Illustration: Map of Bavaria
Infant mortality in 1901.
Figure C 79.]
I cannot suppress another objection to the usual way of proving the--to
my mind undoubted--influence of breast-feeding on the duration of life
in infancy. Why is the mortality of those children who have not been
suckled for a week so large? Is it because they have not been suckled,
or because they have only lived altogether for less than a week? Or,
again, to be able to be suckled for 40 or 50 weeks, one must have lived
for 40 or 50 weeks, but a child who has lived for 40 or 50 weeks,
whether it has been suckled or not, has passed over the worst period.
It is well-known that the mortality in the first days of life is the
highest in the second week, much higher than in the third week, and so
on. In short, the mortality changes in such an extremely high degree
in the course of the first year of life that this period is much too
long for the comparison between mortality of suckled and non-suckled
children. One ought to calculate how many of those who have been
suckled for 0 weeks, one week, two weeks, one month, three months, six
months, and so on, have survived the first week, the second week, the
first month, and so on. Only in this manner can be established what is
the share of the absence of breast-feeding and what is the share of
the innate weakness and tendency to disease in the degree of infant
mortality."
[Illustration: Map of Bavaria
Percentage of under-sized Bavarian recruits (below 1.62 metres in
height) in 1875.
After Professor Ranke.
Figure C 80.]
Exhibit C 81-82.
[Illustration: Map of Bavaria.
Fitness for Military Service in Bavaria, 1902.
Figure C 81.]
[Illustration: Map of Bavaria
Mortality from Pulmonary Consumption in 1901.
Figure C 82.]
[Sidenote: C 83]
A striking peculiarity of cities, especially large cities, is, as
pointed out before, the high mortality amongst men; for this general
observation Figure C 83, +male and female mortality in town and
country+, offers an example. Whereas the female mortality in
Berlin, in the higher age groups, is even lower than in Mecklenburg
with its preponderantly country population--which is evidence that in
town life there are no inherent circumstances adversely affecting all
persons in a high degree--the male mortality in all the age groups
is higher, and in some much higher. The special adverse influence on
men of town life is also apparent in the upper part of the figure
(+comparison of male and female mortality)+. In Mecklenburg the
mortality among men is at most 25% higher than among women, and during
the period of most intense child production, as well as in the highest
age group, it is even smaller, whereas in Berlin the differences
are much more accentuated. It may be remarked that the higher male
death-rate in Mecklenburg between the ages of 40 to 75 years can only
to a small degree be explained by physiological reasons. This is shown
for example by the fact that in the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein,
Pomerania, Hanover, Hessen-Nassau, and the Rhein Provinces in the
country, the expectation of life for men aged 25 years is about equal
to that of women.
[Sidenote: C 84 & 85]
The higher male mortality in cities is only partially explained by
the specific harmfulness peculiar to men's town occupations, though
the mortality of peasants and agricultural labourers ranks amongst
the lowest. A very important part in this connection may be played
by syphilis. How terribly syphilis injures the body, though it is
seldom directly fatal, is shown by the experiences of life insurance
companies, of which examples are given in Tables C 84 and C 85. With
the Gotha Life Insurance Bank, for instance, +the mortality of the
syphilitic at the ages of 36 to 50 years+ was found to be nearly
double as high (186%) as that of the non-syphilitic.
[Sidenote: C 85]
Table C 85 shows to what a high degree +the heart and vessels
especially are harmed by syphilis+. At this point it is to be
noted that it may now be considered as proved that the statement that
general paralysis causes death in 2.9% cases among the non-syphilitic
is erroneous, because general paralysis only occurs among persons who
have been affected with syphilis. There is no doubt that the poison
of syphilis is also most injurious to the germs and the progeny; the
foetus is sometimes infected in the mother's womb, and sometimes
suffers by the general debility of the maternal body. A large
proportion also of those children who attain a higher age are either
enfeebled or damaged in many ways, and this inferiority is often
passed down to the grandchildren. The most recent Serum investigations
(the Wasserman reaction) are the first to throw full light on this.
In Germany syphilis occurs much more frequently in town than in the
country; this no doubt dependent on prostitution and on a much greater
degree of promiscuity of sexual intercourse in cities. In the country
couples keep together with greater constancy, even in the case of
cohabitation without marriage.
[Sidenote: C 86-88]
+The frequency of syphilis and other venereal diseases in town and
country+ is illustrated in Table C 86, which gives the result of
the enquiries of the Prussian Government on the 30th April, 1900,
and Table C 87 after Schwiening, on +the frequency of sexual
diseases among military recruits+. Also Table C 88 which gives the
+frequency of delirium tremens, epilepsy, and general paralysis+
in the +Prussian lunatic asylums+, points in the same direction
by the great differences shown in the frequency of general paralysis
in the different institutions. This table, at the same time, indicates
what is also supported by other observations, that the +frequency
and intensity of harmful influences through alcohol+ are much
+greater in towns than in the country+; this may be partly
because in cities there is a greater and more regular abuse of
alcoholic beverages than in the country, partly because town-life
induces a greater susceptibility to alcoholic poisoning than country
life (less intense metabolism with sedentary occupations).
[Sidenote: C 89-90]
+Injury to the reproductive function through alcohol+. It has
been known for a long time that drunkards are frequently sterile. This
must be attributed to the fact that the testicles of drunkards become
to a great extent atrophied. The condition is shown in Figure C 89 by
R. Weichselbaum,[B] representing a section through the testicle of a
drunkard. Figure C 90 which shows a section through a normal testicle,
enables even the layman to observe the atrophy of the characteristic
glandular tissue of the testicle. Weichselbaum has up to now found that
in fifty-four cases, without exception, in which alcoholism had been
proved, this atrophy could be demonstrated to a greater or less degree.
In thirty of these cases the subject was so young that senile atrophy
was out of the question. The abuse of alcohol is not the only harmful
influence which is able to induce such atrophy of the testicles, but
chronic alcoholism acts with special intensity. Very similar results
to those of Weichselbaum have been obtained by Bertholet (Zentralbl.
f. allg. Pathologie 20 Bd. 1909) in 37 out of 39 habitual drunkards.
They agree with observations on the vesiculae seminales of drunkards by
Simmonds, who found that in 61% of the cases examined the spermatozoa
were absent or dead. It is a permissible assumption that a poison which
can cause the total atrophy of the sexual glands may, in an earlier
stage, have adversely influenced in respect to quality the function of
those organs.
[Footnote B: Verhandlungen der Deutschen Patholog: Gesellschaft, 14th
day, Jena, Fischer, 1910, page 234.]
[Sidenote: C 91]
[Sidenote: C 92]
+Alcohol and Degeneration+, from the tables on the alcohol question
by Gruber and Kraepelin, Munich; Lehmann; contains the well-known
statistics of Demme, Bunge, and Arrivée. Table C 92 adds to the summary
of the statistical observations of Demme, further details of the +kind
of abnormalities+ which were +observed in children of drunkards+.
Representing, as they do, exceptionally bad cases with a high degree
of degeneration, one may doubt whether and in how far congenital
hereditary inferiority of the parents may have had its influence.
[Sidenote: C 93]
Figure C 93 contains the well-known result of v. Bunge's investigations
on the +influence of paternal alcoholism on the suckling capacity of
the daughters+. The varying frequency of the habitual consumption
of alcohol and of drunkenness proper of the father in the two groups of
families is most striking. Official investigations of this question on
a large scale are urgently called for.
[Sidenote: C 94]
Figure C 94 dealing with the +interconnection of tuberculosis,
nervous diseases and psychoses of the progeny and the alcohol
consumption of the father+, is derived from Bunge's investigations.
It is worthy of notice that he endeavoured to eliminate from his
statistics all families in whom hereditary diseases could be traced
previously.
[Sidenote: C 95]
Table C 95 contains a summary of T. Laitinen's +experiments on
animals with small quantities of alcohol+. The degree of injury
to the progeny supposed to be produced by even a minimum quantity of
alcohol (corresponding to about one-third of pint of beer for a man) is
astounding. Repetition of these experiments on a large scale and with
the strictest care would be most desirable here also.
[Sidenote: C 96]
Table C 96 also refers to reports by T. Laitinen.[C] +It deals
with the effect of alcohol on the progeny in man+. Unfortunately
Laitinen's paper is so confused and inexact that it is impossible
for the reader safely to draw conclusions from it. His personal
observations are mixed up with those gathered by means of inquiry
sheets circulated by him in such a way that one cannot make out how
he has arrived at his weights at birth and mortality. Information is
lacking with regard to the nutrition of the children, their age at the
conclusion of the investigations, the length of marriage, the rapidity
of birth sequence and so on. It is, therefore, indispensable to await
the more detailed report before Laitinen's information can be made use
of.
[Footnote C: Internat. Monatschrift z. Erforschung des Alkoholismus,
Juli, 1910.]
[Sidenote: C 97]
Bezzola has sent in in a modified form the data which he presented
to the Eighth International Congress against Alcoholism in Vienna
in 1901, on the +effect of acute intoxication on the origin of
feeble-mindedness+. With their help the curve on Figure C 97 has
been constructed, showing the distribution of illegitimate births in
Switzerland during the different months of the year from Bezzola's
data and the corresponding curve of the births of mentally eminent
individuals (taken from Brockhaus' encyclopædia.) The author supplies
the following comments:--
"+Comparison between the general birth curve and the corresponding
one for the birth of feeble-minded children+."
The casual observation at the registration of the personal history
of feeble-minded individuals that 50 per cent. of the birth dates
fall within only fourteen weeks of the year (New Year, carnival,
and wine harvest) has aroused the desire to deal with the seasonal
incidence of the begetting of the feeble-minded on the basis of as
much material as possible. For this purpose the author's census of
feeble-minded school children, which took place in the year 1897, and
referred to the years 1886-90 inclusive, seemed specially suited.
Originally (in 1901) a curve was plotted in which all the 8,186
feeble-minded and idiotic children were included whose exact birthdays
were known, and this curve was compared with the total curve for that
period. (Schweiz. Statistik 112 Liefg.) The latter was constructed
in the following manner from the whole number of births (934,619)
which occurred in these eleven years:--The general daily average was
taken as 100, and the daily average for each month was expressed
proportionately. Thus numbers above 100 show a daily birth frequency
above the average, while for numbers below 100 the reverse is the
case. The curve for the 8,136 feeble-minded persons was constructed
in a similar way, and thus a comparison with the general population
producing them was made possible. Subsequently (1910-11), in order to
secure homogeneous material, the first and last years were left out,
since by including them, owing to the non-agreement of the school
year and the astronomical year, the earlier months (January-April)
were much weighted. By this restriction of the material dealt with
the number of feeble-minded is reduced to 7,759, but the material for
each separate year is more homogeneous. Distributed between 2,922 days
(eight years), the daily production of the feeble-minded is 2.648,
the corresponding total number of births of the years 1882-89 ls
677,083, or 231.7 per day. 1.14 per cent. of all births are included
in the figure for the feeble-minded. If one treats the total number of
births for each month as well as the number of births of feeble-minded
according to the method described above, and used by the Federal
Statistical Bureau, two curves are produced which diverge considerably
from each other in particular months. On the whole the curve for the
feeble-minded (thick line) is flatter than the curve for the total.
Especially striking are the drop in May and June (corresponding to
the procreation period from the 25th July to the 23rd September) and
two peaks rising above the "total" curve. One of these is slight,
yet distinct. It refers to the months of birth, July and August,
corresponding with the procreation period from the 24th September to
the 24th November. More conspicuous is the second peak of the curve
for the feeble-minded from October to December, otherwise a time poor
in births. The centre of the corresponding period of procreation
(25th December to 26th March) is in February (carnival). This seems
to confirm the suspicion that during the wine harvest and carnival
an increased procreation of feeble-minded occurs (procreation during
drunkenness?).
We cannot suppress the remark that the fluctuations of the curve for
the feeble-minded are much too small to admit of the drawing of an
ætiological conclusion, but the fluctuations of the intelligence curve
and the illegitimate curve partly exceed the limits of probable error.
The peaks of both birth curves in February, correspond to a peak in
the procreation curve in May. Perhaps one may attribute them to the
existence of a remnant of a period of "heat" (or a rutting season) in
man.
[Sidenote: C 98]
+Lead.+ Whereas the +germ cells+ are well protected against many
harmful influences from without which affect the soma of the mother,
they +and the foetus produced from them suffer considerably from+
some. Amongst their deadliest enemies are +certain poisons+, and
+notorious in this respect is lead+. Table C 98 gives two sets of
statistics on this point, they justify the law in Germany, and in other
States, forbidding female labour to deal with lead and lead-containing
materials. Paul's figures, showing that lead poisoning of the father
is also extremely adverse to the production of a healthy progeny, are
remarkable.
[Sidenote: C 99]
+Female Labour.+ A baneful influence on reproduction is brought
to bear by the growing quantity of professional female labour away from
home and by the economic emancipation of women. Evidence of this is
given in Table C 99--"+female labour and child mortality+"--the
data of which are taken from Prinzing's work. Infant mortality is
higher the larger the percentage of females employed in factories
during the child-bearing period. This is partly due to interference
with breast-feeding and partly to the unfavourable influence on
pregnancy.
[Sidenote: C 100]
Dr. Agnes Bluhm has given in Figure C 100 "+Female Labour and
Reproductive Activity+," the statistics of Roger and Thiraux, as
well as the results of the investigation of the Imperial Statistical
Office on the "Relationship of illness and deaths in the Local
Invalidity Fund for Leipzig and surroundings." Dr. Bluhm gives the
following explanation: "The top figure on the left is based on material
of the Local Invalidity Fund for Leipzig and surroundings, dealing
with over a quarter of a million of women of child-bearing age. The
distinction between obligatory and voluntary members makes possible
the estimate of the +influence of work continued up to the time of
confinement+, because the voluntary members receive the same weekly
payments during confinement as the obligatory ones, and, consequently,
a woman has no object in joining the voluntary insurance scheme except
in order to secure rest before confinement, which they procure for
themselves at their own expense and with the loss of their wages. (At
that time the compulsory support during time of pregnancy did not
exist.) It is to be noted that the voluntary members show ten times as
many confinements as the obligatory ones."
"The left hand figure at the top shows that the women who work up to
the time of confinement fall ill during their pregnancy twice as often,
and have six or seven times as many miscarriages and premature births
and 1.28 times as many cases of death in child-bed, as those who stop
work for a more or less extended period previous to their delivery."
"The frequency of illness after childbirth is in both categories of
women almost the same; but the duration of the illness beyond the
period for which the legal subvention provides (13, 26, or 34 weeks
respectively) is much greater in the case of the obligatory members who
do not spare themselves before their delivery."
"Left hand figure at the bottom--the researches were made by Roger and
Thiraux in a maternity home. A comparison is made between the women
who entered the home only at the beginning of childbirth and those who
entered during the last month of pregnancy or sooner. Premature birth
occurs in nearly one-third of the cases among the former, but among the
latter only one-eighth.
"Right hand figure at the bottom--dealing with the same material as
the left hand figure below compares the weight at birth of the first,
second and later born. The average weight of the former is 300 g.
and that of the latter 341 g. higher with mothers who cease work two
or three months before delivery, than with those who worked up to
the last. Possibly this expresses in the main the different duration
of pregnancy. The importance of the birth weight of a child for its
further development is not to be underrated."
"The top figure on the right shows that the importance of the adverse
influence of female labour on the race, shown in the above figures, is
growing, because there is an increase of employment amongst married
women. Simon's figures show that the manufacturing industries, which
in 1907 employed by themselves two million female hands, the number of
married women has increased by almost 200,000 during the last twelve
years. In agriculture, in which four and a half million females find
their main occupation, the share of the married women is much greater
still."
"The increase of married female labour being intimately connected with
the development of our economic life, which cannot be deliberately
influenced, the demand for a Motherhood Insurance for all female
labourers of any kind, and for the extension of the legal time of
stoppage of work before childbirth to at least four weeks, follows as a
practical result of the facts stated above."
Dr. Bluhm's repeated assertion, which is regarded by many as a
dogma, that economic conditions cannot be deliberately influenced
(+i.e.+, that they are of the character of a law of nature) must
not remain uncontradicted as a principal. It is absolutely unproved,
though the difficulty of influencing our economic life cannot be
denied; the economic order has been created by man and +must+ be
altered if it proves harmful for the race.
[Sidenote: C 101]
The adverse influence of female labour on the progeny is shown from
a somewhat different point of view in Table C 101--"+premature
births and abortions in different callings+." The most serious
fact shown here is that a low birth rate may frequently be found in
conjunction with a high rate for miscarriage and premature birth;
as the compiler of these statistics points out, this conjunction is
most apparent in those callings which demand frequent intercourse
with the public, such as domestic service, that is to say in cases
where pregnancy is particularly inconvenient. Probably in these cases
artificial prevention of pregnancy goes hand in hand with the procuring
of abortion!
Race-hygiene does not aim at an indiscriminate motherhood insurance of
married and unmarried mothers, but it aims at the economic subvention
and encouragement of legitimate fertility of healthy and able parents,
connected with, and rendered possible by, a reduction of female labour
away from the home. Marriage is one of the most important hygienic
institutions for the individual as well as for the race, and it is
folly to allow its decay and to replace it by substitutes.
[Sidenote: C 102]
+The importance of marriage for the health to married persons+
is shown by figure C 102--"+condition with regard to marriage and
mortality in Prussia, 1894-97+," as given in Prinzing's book. That
we have to deal here with an actual favourable influence of marriage,
and not with a selection of the healthy at the time of marriage, is
proved by the fact that the low death rate of the married is maintained
through all age classes and that the widowed and divorced show
throughout the highest death rate.
[Sidenote: C 103]
"+Condition with regard to marriage and mortality, cases of death
from tuberculosis+," after Weinberg, also confirms with regard to
tuberculosis the favourable influence of marriage on the health of
men. With women the mortality from tuberculosis up to the age of 60 is
lowest among the unmarried. Pregnancy and suckling act here adversely,
but by far the worst position is also held here by widows and divorced
women.
[Sidenote: C 104-105]
The advantage of marriage for the progeny is made evident in Figure
C 104--"+mortality of illegitimate children in different European
states+", and in Figure C 105 dealing with the "+survival of the
legitimate and illegitimate children in Berlin in 1885+." After
five years there are still alive more than 60% of the legitimate,
but only 40% of the illegitimate children. The higher mortality of
the latter is by no means a purifying process of weeding, but the
expression of greater sickliness which permanently harms the surviving
also. The division of labour between man and wife, with reference to
the care of the offspring, is one of Nature's institutions which is of
the greatest advantage for parents as well as children.
[Sidenote: C 106-107]
+Inbreeding and the Crossing of Races.+ On the whole with
mankind inbreeding is viewed with fear, and justly so, in view of
our customary carelessness with regard to the physical and mental
conditions of those who contract marriage. +If blood relations have
similar pathological conditions or pre-dispositions to illness or
degeneracy, the progeny which results from their union is endangered to
a particularly high degree.+ Our collection brings as an example
of this in Table C 106--the pedigree of the celebrated Don Carlos. The
bad inheritance of Johanna the Mad asserts itself to a lesser degree
yet quite perceptibly also in the children of Max. II. Table C 107--the
children of Maximilian and his cousin Maria of Spain; undoubtedly the
Emperor Rudolf II. was mentally diseased. Also Charles V. and his son
Philip II. were abnormal characters.
[Sidenote: C 108]
+Blood relationship of the parents and health of the children+,
which v. d. Velden has prepared from Riffel's family tables, also
speaks for the harmfulness of inbreeding. The offspring of blood
relations are emphatically weaker and sicklier than those of persons
related distantly or not at all.
[Sidenote: C 109]
The harm of inbreeding amongst the pathological is also illustrated by
the large Table 222 (exhibited by Schüle). Pedigrees from wine-growing
districts in the centre of Baden; against this it may be taken as
proved that inbreeding in itself between the healthy and fit is
not harmful. Animal breeders (as well as plant cultivators) make
an extensive use of it with the view to the cultivation of certain
hereditary characteristics.
[Sidenote: C 110]
We show in Table C 110, after de Chapeaurouge, the +pedigree of
Belvidere+, an animal which, in spite of close inbreeding, was
distinguished by excellent qualities, and by whom, out of his own
daughter, another sire of the highest rank was produced.
[Sidenote: C 111]
After long-continued and very close inbreeding, even with a faultless
condition of the germ plasm, the decrease of vitality and fertility
of the progeny asserts itself. Important evidence for this is given
by Georg. H. Shull in his exhibition of +cross-fertilized,
self-fertilized and hybridized maize+ (Exhibit No. C 111).
Shull makes the following comments: "Results of inbreeding with
maize--crossing between different races or genotypes, if not too
distantly related, results in a progeny which excels its parents in
vitality, whereas crosses between individuals belonging to the same
genotype engender no increase of vitality as compared with the parents."
In maize, and presumably in most other plants and animals in which
cross-fertilization is the rule, all individuals are usually
complicated hybrids between different varieties of genotype. They owe
their vigorous constitution to this hybrid nature.
"The result of self-fertilization or of close inbreeding is that
the hybrid nature diminishes in degree. The stock is reduced to a
homozygotic condition, and is thus deprived of the stimulus which lies
in the hybrid condition."
"When two given genotypes are crossed, the first hybrid generation is
possessed of the greatest vigour. Even the second generation shows
much less vitality, and this decrease continues with the third and
later generations. But each succeeding generation differs less from
its predecessor than the latter differed from its own parents. As soon
as the stock has become a pure line, inbreeding produces no further
weakening."
"The top row of the exhibited collection of maize cobs (large cobs with
many grains) is derived from a family in which for five generations
self-fertilization has been prevented by using mixed pollen. These
conditions approach those prevailing in an ordinary field."
"The middle row of maize cobs (small cobs with few grains) comes
from families of the same derivation as the first row; but for five
generations they have been self-fertilized. Each one has characters
which the others do not possess. They are almost pure bred, and
continued self-fertilization produces no further adverse influence. The
cob, quite to the right, without grains, has pistils so short that
they do not project from the husks. This genotype must, therefore, be
fertilized artificially."
"The lowest row (the largest cobs with the most grains) comes from
families which have been created by the crossing of plants belonging to
different genotypes, the relationship in which case is indicated by the
lines which connect this row with the middle row."
"The following harvests of grain were made in the year 1910:--
Self-fertilization prevented (average of nine
families) 53.5 hi pro ha.
Self-fertilized (average of ten families) 25.3 " " "
F1 hybrid (average of six families) 59.2 " " "
F2 hybrid (average of seven families) 38.8 " " "
[Sidenote: C 112-114]
It is well-known to what degree +inbreeding+ is practised in
+reigning families+. We show as an example for this, Chart
C 112, the +pedigree of the Archduchess Maria de los Dolores of
Tuscany+, exhibited by Dr. Stephan Kekule von Stradonitz, and
Chart C 113 of the same exhibitor, +pedigree of Ptolemäus X+.
Soter II. (Lathros), and Chart C 114, +pedigree of the celebrated
Cleopatra+. Though with Ptolemäus X. the effect of sexual
reproduction in bringing about new combinations of hereditary units was
very limited, since the couple, Ptolemäus V. Epiphanes and Cleopatra
Syra having produced all the germ cells from which he developed, he
appears, nevertheless, to have been a perfectly normal being. In his
granddaughter Cleopatra certainly much "extraneous blood" circulated.
[Sidenote: C 115]
Even where there is no high degree of inbreeding, the individuals of a
people are much more closely related to each other than is generally
assumed. Table C 115, "+theoretical number of ancestors+," shows
that, assuming the duration of one generation to be 35 years, and that
no marriages between relations have taken place, the number of the
ancestors of a man living now would have been eighteen billions in the
year 0 a.d. In reality the germanic race, wandering west, probably
only numbered hundreds of thousands. This phenomenon of "+ancestral
loss+," as Ottokar Lorenz calls it (that the number of real
ancestors is much smaller than those theoretically possible), can be
illustrated in the pedigrees of the reigning houses.
[Sidenote: C 116]
We have in Table C 116 an +analysis of pedigree of Emperor William
II.+, after Ottokar Lorenz. Investigations show that twelve
generations back the real number of his ancestors amounts to only
one-eighth of the possible figure. Only 275 persons have actually been
found because in the older lines, the bourgeois element, of which no
record can be found, has had a very large share.
[Sidenote: C 117]
Very little knowledge exists concerning the effect of the crossing of
races in man. On the whole it appears not to be favourable, if it is a
question of crossing of races from far apart, even in purely physical
respects. An example of harmful influence is given in v. d. Velden's
Table C 117--"+Fertility and Health in relation to the crossings of
races+."
NEOMALTHUSIANISM.
[Sidenote: C 118-122]
The next and the greatest concern of race-hygiene--much greater than
the relative increase of inferiority--is, to-day, neomalthusianism,
the intentional restriction of the number of births in varying degrees
up to complete unproductiveness. Though conscious regulation of the
production of children is absolutely necessary, it becomes fatal to
a nation if under no control but the egotism of the individual. For
its permanent prosperity a nation requires, in order merely to hold
its own, a sufficient number of "hands" and a sufficient number of
"heads" to guide those "hands." We referred to this when mention was
made of sterility as a phenomenon of degeneration, but this cause of
sterility during the last decades only takes a second place compared
to deliberate intention. The wealthy and higher social classes were
first attacked by neomalthusianism. Their progeny is becoming more and
more utterly insufficient, so that under our present social conditions,
particularly which give mind and talent better openings, and thereby
more and more take out of the mass of the people the better elements,
make the strongest demand for them and use them up, the danger of an
increasing deterioration of the average quality of its progeny grows
greater and greater. The baneful influence of wealth on fertility is
shown by several tables. Figure C 118 "+Fertility and Wealth+,"
after Goldstein and Tallquist, gives the condition in the French
Departments; Figure C 119, "+Number of Children and Wealth+,"
after Bertillon, for the Arrondissements of Paris; Figure C 120,
"+Fertility and Wealth+," after Mombert, for Münich, 1901, Table
C 121, "+The Number of Children in Families of Different Classes in
Denmark+, 1901," after Westergaard; Table C 122, "+Fertility
of Marriages, Occupation, and Wealth for Copenhagen, and Dutch
Conditions+," after Rubin, Westergaard, and Verrijn Stuart.
[Sidenote: C 123]
The worst condition with regard to the fertility prevails among
those with the highest mental endowment. Evidence of this is given
in Figure C 123, "+Insufficient Fertility of the Highly Endowed
in Holland+," after J. R. Steinmetz. It shows the rapidity with
which the number of children decreases. In order to estimate the
significance of these statistics, it must be noted that after taking
into account the mortality among children and young persons, and the
unfitness for parenthood of an appreciable fraction of the adults,
a fully capable couple would have to produce at least four children
to assure the necessary moderate increase in the population which
is required to prevent a people from sinking into stagnation and
deterioration.
[Sidenote: C 124]
The dying out of highly gifted families is shown to be more accentuated
in Figure 255, after Bertillon, "+Progeny of the Highly Gifted in
France+." Four hundred and forty-five of the best known Frenchmen,
with their wives, have not even reproduced that number of individuals,
and this in spite of the fact that repeated marriages of the same
individuals have not been taken into account.
[Sidenote: C 125-126]
Even if one has been able, up to the present, to live in the hope
that the number of persons of more than average ability produced by
the mass of the people is always sufficient to replace those that are
used up, at the present time anxiety about the "heads" is replaced
by anxiety about the "hands." The knowledge of means of preventing
fertilization spreads incessantly, and is recklessly promulgated by
the neomalthusians and by a shameless industry. We point to Figure C
125, "+Want of Fertility in French Towns+," after Jayle, and to
Figure C 126, "+Fertility in Prussia+." In Berlin fertility is
decreasing most rapidly; at the end of the sixties it still amounted
to 200 in every 1,000 women of child-bearing age. In the five years,
1905-1910, only to 84; in the year 1910 only to 74. This state of
things is shown also in the relative increase in numbers of the first
born.
[Sidenote: C 127, 128 & 129]
Figure C 127, "+Decrease of Legitimate Fertility in Berlin--the
two-children system+." The other German towns follow the example
of Berlin. Berlin to-day produces 20% less children than are required
to maintain its own population without immigration, and the same
conditions will soon prevail in other towns. Up to now the country
districts in general maintain their fertility (West Prussia on Figure
C 128), but there, too, modern practices begin to make themselves
felt. The town and industrial population increases so rapidly that the
conditions prevailing among them have an ever increasing effect on the
people as a whole. Thus we see, even at the present time, a serious
decline in fertility among an overwhelming majority of European States:
Figure C 129, "+Decrease of Fertility in Some European States+."
[Sidenote: D]
Exhibited by David Fairchild Weeks, M.D.,
+Director of the New Jersey State Village for Epileptics at
Skillman, U.S.A.+
Explanation of Symbols used in the Charts.
Male individuals are indicated by squares and females by circles. The
members of each fraternity are connected by the same horizontal line.
The fraternity line is connected by a vertical line to the line joining
the symbols representing the father and mother. Illegal unions and
illegitimate children are shown by dotted lines. As an aid in tracing
the patient's immediate family, a green line is used to connect the
direct ancestors on the paternal side, and a red line on the maternal
side. The red squares and circles indicate epileptics, the green the
insane, the black the feeble-minded, and purple the criminalistic. The
figures directly above the fraternity line indicate the rank in birth,
a figure inside a square or circle shows the number of individuals of
that sex. A black dot suspended from the fraternity line stands for a
miscarriage or a stillbirth. A line underneath a square or circle shows
that institutional care has been received. The hand points out our
patient.
The following letters indicate the different conditions: A, alcoholic;
B, blind; C, criminalistic; D, deaf; E, epileptic; F, feeble-minded;
I, insane; M, migrainous; N, normal; P, paralytic; S, syphilitic; T,
tubercular; W, wanderer, tramp; d, died; b, born; inf, infancy; Sx,
unchaste.
[Sidenote: D 1]
This chart shows very clearly the dangerous results of a marriage in
which both of the +parents are epileptic+. Of the four children
the first three were epileptic, and the fourth, a boy, who died at the
age of nine, was feeble-minded. All four of these children were cared
for at public expense, two are patients at the New Jersey State Village
for Epileptics, and the other two were wards of the Children's Home
Finding Society. The epileptic father is dead, and the mother married
again to an alcoholic man. When last heard of she had another child.
[Sidenote: D 2]
An +epileptic+ woman, married to a +feeble-minded man+,
is responsible for the large number of defectives shown on this chart.
The principal mating is that of one of the epileptic daughters of
this woman, who, like her mother, married a feeble-minded man. Eight
children resulted from this marriage; one died before two years of age,
the other seven were epileptic, the five who are living are patients
at the New Jersey State Village. Two of the girls in this fraternity
had illegitimate children before receiving proper care. This family is
undoubtedly a branch of a family of defectives, most of whom live in an
adjoining State.
[Sidenote: D 3]
This is a case of +incest+, and shows plainly that the "empty
germ plasm can yield only emptiness." These people lived in a hut
in the woods. The feeble-minded man had by his defective sister an
epileptic daughter, then by this daughter he had four children, one an
epileptic, one a feeble-minded woman of the streets, who spends much
of her time in jail, one an anencephalic monster who died soon after
birth, and one a feeble-minded boy, who did not grow to manhood. Since
the hut in the woods burned down, the epileptic woman and feeble-minded
daughter live in a cellar in town, though much of their time is spent
in jail.
[Sidenote: D 4]
This chart shows a +feeble-minded+ man, who came from a
feeble-minded family, married to an +epileptic+ woman, who
descended from a tubercular epileptic father and a mother who is
described as "flighty," "not too bright." This couple had six children,
three feeble-minded, two epileptic, and one still-born. Since the death
of the epileptic mother, the father has secured homes in institutions
for all of his children except one, and then married again. As yet he
has no children by the second wife.
[Sidenote: D 5]
The wife in the central mating in this case is a low grade
+epileptic+, who can scarcely recognize her own children. The
father is a +feeble-minded alcoholic+, who works hard, but who
spends all his money for drink. There were six children; one died at
the age of four, and all of the others except one six-year-old boy are
epileptic. All are being cared for by the public. Before the mother and
three of the epileptic children were brought to the State Village for
Epileptics the family lived in a cellar, slept on rags, and depended on
the neighbours for food.
[Sidenote: D 6]
This is a history which illustrates very well the source of a
large number of the almshouse inmates. The central figure is an
+epileptic+ woman, who spent most of her life in the poor house.
No two of her seven children are by the same father. The epileptic
daughter, whose father was feeble-minded, had started to lead the same
kind of life as her mother; in the almshouse she gave birth to one
illegitimate child before she was put under State care. The mother,
when she last left the almshouse, went to live in a hut in the woods
with a feeble-minded man, who had three feeble-minded sons; one of
these sons married the feeble-minded sister of one of the epileptic
patients at the New Jersey State Village.
[Sidenote: D 7a]
[Sidenote: D 7b]
This is the history of two patients who have been found to be related,
the great grandfather of the one was the brother of the grandmother of
the other. The principal mating under D 7a is that of a +feeble-minded+
man married to an +epileptic+ woman, whose mother died in the insane
asylum. They had six children, the first died when only a few months
old, the next and the fourth were not bright and died young, the third
is an epileptic, the fifth is feeble-minded and criminalistic and he
is now at the State Home for Boys, the sixth is also feeble-minded and
cared for at an industrial home for children. The mother and father,
at one time inmates of the almshouse, are now supported by the town.
Under D 7b the father, who died of spinal meningitis, was migrainous
and had many epileptic relatives, the mother is neurotic. There were
four children, the first an epileptic, the second died at 20 of spinal
meningitis, the third is of a very nervous temperament, the last, a
girl of 16, seems to be normal.
[Sidenote: D 8]
Both of the parents in this case are +feeble-minded+. The
father was the black sheep of his family, his brothers are intelligent
men, and for the most part good citizens; the mother, however, was
the illegitimate child of a feeble-minded woman. There were seven
children, one an epileptic, the others all feeble-minded with the
exception of the sixth, who is now about 11 years old; she was taken
from her home and put with a very good family; she shows the effect
of the changed environment, and though not up to her grade in school,
is only slightly backward. There is some doubt about the parentage of
the child, and it is very probable that she is by a different father.
Since the father's death the mother has had one illegitimate child; her
children were taken away from her except the two oldest because of the
immoral conditions in the home, and she now claims to be married to
a feeble-minded man, who is the younger feeble-minded brother of her
imbecile daughter's husband.
[Sidenote: D 9]
The central mating in this case is that of an +epileptic, alcoholic,
sexually immoral+ man, married to a +neurotic and sexually
immoral+ woman, who has many insane and feeble-minded relatives.
They had in all ten children; two were epileptic, three, feeble-minded,
one criminalistic and sexually immoral, the sixth is the only one who
has a good reputation, the last was a stillbirth. The father and mother
are no longer living together.
[Sidenote: D 10]
The case illustrated on this chart is of a +feeble-minded+
woman married to an +alcoholic+ man. The wife descended from an
alcoholic father, who had several epileptic relatives. The husband also
descended from an alcoholic father, and had an epileptic nephew. Of
their nine children, the first three died young of scarlet fever, the
fourth was epileptic, and the other five are feeble-minded.
[Sidenote: D 11]
On this chart we have the history of an +epileptic+ man whose
attacks were of the petit-mal type. He married a choreic woman. They
had four children, the eldest a man who developed epilepsy after
his second marriage. His first wife was insane; by her he had two
daughters, one of whom is now an inmate in an insane asylum, the other
is neurotic and has been treated in a sanatorium. Of the other children
two are apparently normal and one migrainous.
[Sidenote: D 12]
This chart shows an +epileptic+ man married to a normal woman;
he had both epileptic and insane relatives, while she had epileptic,
alcoholic, and tubercular relatives. Their first child was an
epileptic, the next were twins, one of these appears to be normal while
the other is of a very nervous temperament, the fourth died in infancy,
and the last three were stillbirths. The mother married the second
time, this time to a man who drank to excess after their marriage; by
him she had two children, both of whom seem to be normal. They are both
in school.
[Sidenote: D 13]
This is the history of a low grade +epileptic+. His oldest
sister is normal; she was brought up by strangers after her mother's
death, and is now earning her living as a saleslady. The second was a
boy, who was thought to be normal until he was about sixteen, when he
displayed criminalistic tendencies, and for the crime of rape was put
in the Reform School. The youngest is a girl, who is of a very nervous
temperament. The father was an alcoholic, and went on long sprees; he
deserted his wife and family to live with a woman who also deserted a
family. His brother is an alcoholic, and married the patient's mother's
sister; they are now divorced. The mother was migrainous, she died of
tuberculosis; her family shows a neurotic taint, while the father has
several epileptic relatives.
[Sidenote: D 14]
In the central mating the father and mother are both
+migrainous+. They both belong to families prominent in the
community in which they reside; their homes are among the best, and
they are counted as leading citizens. There were nine children;
three died before four years of age, one is epileptic, one seems to
be normal, and the others all show some nervous taint, though not
migrainous.
[Sidenote: D 15]
This is the history of a +syphilitic and a sexually immoral
couple+. They were never married, and the woman for many years
supported the man, who was never sober and frequently had attacks of
delirium tremens. She finally deserted him. Of their eight children two
were stillbirths, three were epileptic, and the other syphilitic. One
of the epileptics in a jealous rage shot the woman whom he loved, and
when he found that escape was impossible, killed himself.
[Sidenote: D 15a-b]
Charts explaining the method of collecting and recording data.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: E]
Exhibited by Mr E. J. Lidbetter.
A selection by Mr. E. J. Lidbetter, from his collection of pedigrees,
showing pauperism in association with mental and physical defect,
justifying the inference that a high proportion of +pauperism is to
be attributed to the transmission of defect+ and the perpetuation
of stocks of a low type:--
[Sidenote: E 1]
Pedigree showing +mental disease and destructive eye-disease+
in the same stock. Insanity, epilepsy, feeble-mindedness and idiocy in
various degrees in twelve members, several of them being also blind;
partial or total blindness from detachment of the retina without mental
defect in several others. Tendency to "anti-dating" or "anticipation"
of the mental disease in succeeding generations or younger born
offspring. The printed numbers on the diagram indicate the age of the
individual on 1st attack. Prevalence of tuberculosis (three members).
Neither mental nor ocular conditions attributable to syphilis. Of the
49 individuals whose history is known 26 have been, or are being,
maintained in public institutions (Asylums, Workhouses, Blind Schools,
or Poor Law Schools), 29 have been paupers at intervals, and two
are known to have been in prison. Several marriages between mental
defectives yielding large but inferior families. (Exhibited by Mr. E.
T. Lidbetter. The eye-disease reported upon by Mr. E. Nettleship.)
[Sidenote: E 2]
Pedigree showing the tendency to +intermarry among pauper and
defective families+. On the left "able-bodied" pauperism and on
the right sickness. One hundred and fifty-seven units shown in five
generations; 76 paupers shown, including 38 classed as chronic, 32
occasional and six medical only. Twenty-eight died in infancy, nine
tuberculous, six insane, two epileptics, and one blind. Shows also
pauper children born in lucid intervals of parent suffering from
periodic insanity.
[Sidenote: E 3]
Pedigree illustrating stock of a +low type in which very little
physical defect appears+. The total includes 61 individuals, of
whom 42 are or have been paupers, eight have died in workhouse or
infirmary, and two in asylums for lunatics; one child is an imbecile.
On the whole the stock may be described as mentally sub-normal (not
strongly so), but with a marked non-moral tendency. Of the 34 children
in the last generation, ten are certainly illegitimate; 15 were, or
are, being brought up in Poor Law Institutions, and nine received
out-door relief with their parents. The collective period of pauperism
in this case exceeds 115 years and the cost to the ratepayers is
estimated at about £2,400.
[Sidenote: E 4]
Showing the case of a woman who had two husbands. With the first her
children were consistently defective (deaf and dumb). With the second,
one died in infancy and three are doing well. All the children of the
first are, or have been, paupers.
[Sidenote: E 5]
A series showing the intimate +relation between tuberculosis infant
mortality and pauperism+:--
[Sidenote: E 5a]
Showing a +tuberculous family with apparently normal parents+,
both of whom come from tuberculous stocks. Of their 14 children only
two are normal; six are consumptive; four died in infancy. The father
was one of a family of 8 of whom only he and one other survived--and
that other became insane, and his wife and children became paupers in
consequence.
[Sidenote: E 5b]
Showing +insanity, consumption and infant mortality+; also the
transmission of insanity through the apparently normal.
[Sidenote: E 5c]
Showing the +survival of tuberculous+ stock by accession of
strength from the normal. Only the illegitimate children and their
non-sick father survive in this group.
[Sidenote: E 5d]
Showing the case of a +normal woman who had two consumptive
husbands+. Survival of defective strain by accession of strength
from the normal.
[Sidenote: E 5e]
+Consumption+ in three generations. +Male infant
mortality+. Query, transmission (?) through the normal.
[Sidenote: E 6]
A series showing +transmission of mental defect through the
apparently normal+.
[Sidenote: E 6a]
Insanity, blindness, epilepsy and feeble-mindedness.
[Sidenote: E 6b]
Insanity in three generations. Transmission through the normal in each
case.
[Sidenote: E 6c]
Insanity through the normal twice removed.
[Sidenote: E 6d]
Insanity, epilepsy, and infant mortality--a Mendelian suggestion.
[Sidenote: F]
EXHIBITED BY PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT, CITY OF LIVERPOOL.
E. W. Hope, M.D., M.O.H.
[Sidenote: F 1]
One large model of +insanitary property+ dealt with in
Liverpool, built to scale, etc., with glass cover.
[Sidenote: F 2]
Charts showing the +decline in mortality from phthisis+:--
[Sidenote: F 2a]
One showing rate for England and Wales.
[Sidenote: F 2b]
One " " England and Ireland.
[Sidenote: F 2c]
One " " Scotland.
[Sidenote: F 2d]
One " " Liverpool.
[Sidenote: F 3 b c d e f]
Six framed and glazed photographs illustrating insanitary property
which has been demolished in Liverpool, and the new dwellings which
have been erected to house the dispossessed tenants.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: G]
AN EXHIBIT OF A SYSTEM OF MAKING PEDIGREE RECORDS.
Exhibited by Dr. Raymond Pearl,
+Biologist of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, Orono,
Maine.+
This exhibit consists of a series of blank record forms designed to
+illustrate the method of keeping pedigree records+ which has
been in use at the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station for a period
of five years, in connection with its work in the experimental study of
inheritance in poultry and in various plants. The advantages which have
been found by experience to inhere in this system of pedigree record
keeping are (_a_) simplicity; (_b_) ease of operation; (_c_) small
chance for error in the keeping of large masses of pedigree records;
(_d_) uniformity of the system, such that records of all kinds, in any
way pertaining to the work, may be brought together with great ease for
consultation or study.
In addition to the record blanks there are exhibited also various
marking devices and other apparatus connected with the proper working
of the plan.
It should be noted that while the blanks here exhibited are devised
particularly for work with poultry and plants, the same system, with
slight modifications, may be successfully applied to the keeping of
human pedigree records; indeed it is a pleasure to state that the
system here exhibited is an outgrowth and development of a scheme for
the keeping of pedigree data in general and particularly human pedigree
records suggested many years ago by the late Sir Francis Galton.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: H]
Exhibited by C. V. Drysdale, Esq., D. Sc.
The +Malthusian theory of population+ leads to the conclusion
that the population of the majority of countries is held in check by
lack of food. Therefore, there should be a correspondence between the
birth and death rates, high birth rates producing high death rates and
high infantile mortality, and the death rate should rise or fall with a
rise or fall of the birth rate.
In the accompanying diagrams, white strips imply birth rates, shaded
strips death rates, and black strips infantile mortality, or deaths of
children under one year.
[Sidenote: H 1]
Shows the relation between +birth and death rates and infantile
mortality+ in various countries in 1901-1905.
[Illustration: VARIOUS COUNTRIES 1901-05
Figure H 1.]
[Sidenote: H 2]
Relation between _birth rate and +corrected+ death rates_ in
various countries. (This shows that France is healthier than appears in
H 1.)
[Sidenote: H 3]
Shows relation between +birth and death rates+ from various
causes in five districts of +London+.
[Sidenote: H 4]
Relation between the +birth rate and death rate+ for various
arrondissements of +Paris+ in 1906. (Note that the increase in
the Elysée quarter is as high as the average in the quarters of high
birth rate.)
[Sidenote: H 5-6]
Variation of the +total population and birth and death rates+ in
the +United Kingdom+ and the +German Empire+. (Note that the fall
in the death rate corresponds fairly closely to that in the birth
rate.)
[Sidenote: H 7]
Id. for +France+. (Note that the population is still increasing
although slowly.)
[Sidenote: H 8]
=Birth and death rates for France= since 1781. (Note that the rate of
increase of population in 1781 was no higher with a birth rate of 39
per 1,000 than in 1901-6 with a birth rate of only 21 per 1,000. A fall
of 17.8 per 1,000 in the birth rate has resulted in a fall of 17.5 per
1,000 in the death rate.)
[Sidenote: H 9]
+Birth and death rates and infantile mortality for England and
Wales+. Also +marriage rate, fertility of married women,
illegitimacy+ and +variation of diseases+. (Note that the
illegitimate birth rate has fallen to half since the fall of the birth
rate set in.)
[Sidenote: H 10]
+Birth and death rates and infantile mortality+ in the
+Netherlands+ (Notice the rapid increase of population as the
death rate falls, and the great fall of infantile mortality, probably
due to the practical work of the Dutch Neo-Malthusian League among the
poor.)
[Sidenote: H 11-13]
+_Protestant Countries._+ (Notice the correspondence between the
birth and death rates and infantile mortality in all.)
[Sidenote: H 14-16]
+_Roman Catholic Countries._+ (Note that the fall of the birth
rate has taken place almost equally with that in the Protestant
Countries, and with the same result.)
[Sidenote: H 17-20]
The only +four countries in which the birth rate is approximately
_stationary_+. (Notice that the death rate has not fallen--except,
perhaps in Russia--and that the infantile mortality has not fallen.
Also that the highest birth rate produces the highest death rate and
infantile mortality, and the lowest birth rate the lowest mortality.)
[Sidenote: H 21-24]
The only +four countries with _rising_ birth rates.+ _The death
rate and the infantile mortality have increased in every one._
[Sidenote: H 25]
+_Australia._+ The death rate has fallen with the birth rate,
and is now only about 10 per 1,000.
[Sidenote: H 26]
+_New Zealand._+ The only country in which the fall in the
birth rate has not produced a fall in the death rate, and which is not
therefore over-populated. The infantile mortality is the lowest in the
world, and the death rate less than 10 per 1,000, which gives us an
ideal which we can reach in all countries by lowering the birth rate
sufficiently.
[Sidenote: H 27]
+_The City of Toronto._+ The birth rate has fallen and
afterwards risen. The death rate has fallen with the birth rate, and
afterwards risen, showing that the improvements in sanitation have not
been the cause of the falling death rate in other countries.
[Sidenote: H 28]
+_Berlin._+ The birth rate rose rapidly from 1841 to 1876, and
afterwards fell even more rapidly. The death rate, except for epidemics
and wars, rose and fell in almost precise correspondence with the birth
rate.
[Sidenote: H 29-30]
+_Europe and Western Europe._+ These show that the total
population of Europe is increasing faster, the more the birth rate
falls, while in Western Europe the birth and death rates correspond
almost exactly. Calculations made from this show that about 25,000,000
fewer deaths have occurred in Europe since 1876, due to the fall in
the birth rate caused by the Knowlton Trial and the Neo-Malthusian
movement. It should be noted that in the great majority of cases the
decline of the birth rate commenced in 1877, the year of the Knowlton
Trial.
[Illustration:
EUROPE.
WESTERN EUROPE. (COMPRISING THE UNITED KINGDOM, NORWAY, SWEDEN,
FINLAND, DENMARK, HOLLAND, BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY, AUSTRIA,
SWITZERLAND, ITALY, SPAIN, & PORTUGAL.)
(SEE SUNDBARG'S APERÇUS STATISTIQUES INT'ONAUX 1905. pp. 76 & 80.)
Figures H 29-30]
[Sidenote: I]
Exhibits lent by Mr. and Mrs. W. C. D. Whetham.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: I 1]
1. Pedigree showing the descent of Administrative Ability.
[Sidenote: I 2]
2. Wollaston Pedigree, showing the descent of Scientific Ability.
[Sidenote: I 3]
3. Pedigree showing the Mendelian descent of Eye-colour in mankind.
[Sidenote: K]
THE RACIAL FORM OF NOSE AND ITS SEGREGATIVE INHERITANCE.
By Geo. P. Mudge.
The +form of a nose+ doubtless depends upon many factors. But
chief among them we may suppose are the length, breadth, and angle
of inclination of the nasal bones; the form, length, breadth, and
thickness of the nasal septum, and the degree of development of the
turbinal bones. The segregation and persistence in families of a
definite type of nose-form is a subject well worth further study. The
inheritance of this character from the Mendelian standpoint has not yet
been adequately studied. But as with eye-colour, so with nose-form,
we desire to know not only how alternative characters are inherited
among individuals of the same race, but how they are +transmitted
among+ the offspring of mixed races.
ENGLISH V. GIPSY.
[Sidenote: K 1]
I am able in the photograph exhibited to show what appears to be
an undoubted transmission of a very prominent form of nose from a
grandmother to a grandson. The grandmother (on the right of the
photograph, who is now over 80 years of age) was the wife of a gipsy
and she herself came of gipsy stock. She and her husband eventually
settled in a small village in the West of England. They had six
children, namely, two sons and four daughters. Of the two sons, one was
fair in complexion and had the "wild ways and habits of the gipsy." The
other was dark in complexion and married an English countrywoman of the
district in which his parents had settled. She was of fair complexion.
They are shown, as husband and wife, in the left-hand corner of the
central photograph. They have had four children, namely, three girls
(shown in the centre of the photograph) and one son (shown standing
by the right of his gipsy grandmother in the right corner of the
photograph).
The gipsy grandmother has a very prominent type of nose. It is
characterised by three chief features: First, the broad base on
which the external narial apertures are lodged; second, the marked
convexity of the contour of the bridge; third, the well-defined or
sharp angularity of the general form. Her son's nose differs from hers
in all three of these points. His wife's nose is of the more rounded
type and differs very widely from that of the gipsy grandmother (her
mother-in-law). The three girl children of these two parents clearly
do not possess a nose like that of their grandmother. The two younger
daughters appear to resemble their mother, while the oldest appears to
be an intermediate between her mother and father. So far then there is
no feature of any special interest.
But it is otherwise when we come to deal with the nose of the son
(grandson of the old gipsy woman). For it resembles hers in all three
of the marked features which give to her nose its distinctive and
prominent form. The convexity of the bridge is, perhaps, not quite so
pronounced, but then he is still young, and this is a feature likely to
become accentuated with age.
Two features of Mendelian interest are shown in this group of a
grandmother, two parents and four grandchildren. First, there is a
hereditary transmission of nose type from grandmother to grandson.
Second, there is a clean segregation of the nose type manifested by
the brother, from the contrasted nose type or types exemplified by his
three sisters. In addition, the case is interesting since it manifests
segregation of characters in the offspring of parents of different
races, _i.e._, a gipsy and a native of the West of England.
In the absence of precise information concerning the form of nose of
the gipsy grandmother's husband, and of their five other children, and
of the brothers and sisters of the grandmother, it is difficult to
formulate a scheme showing a definite Mendelian inheritance in this
case. But the two features alluded to in the preceding paragraph are
strongly suggestive of inheritance according to Mendelian principles.
We are indebted to Mrs. Rose Haig Thomas for the general facts of this
case and for the photograph of the group.
+EUROPEAN V. AMERICAN RED INDIAN.+
[Sidenote: K 2]
A few years ago I had an opportunity of meeting two friends who had
spent many years in different parts of Canada and were acquainted with
families who were derived from an ancestry partly European and partly
North American Indian. I gathered from my friends, in virtue of much
kindness and patience upon their part, some valuable facts concerning
the nature of various facial features in the offspring of the two
mixed races--European and Red Indian. I purpose here to deal with two
families and with only one character, _i.e._, the type of nose. The
Red Indian and European type of nose are easily distinguishable. In the
Red Indian the nose is prominent and its frontal profile is formed by
two lines which diverge from the bridge towards the base. The latter
is, in consequence, very broad. The form of nose is sometimes known as
the _busqué_ or curved type, since its lateral profile is in outline
markedly aquiline. But examination of a series of photographs of Red
Indians shows some variation in the lateral profile, since some are
decidedly concave. But the broadness at the base is apparently never
diminished; it is always marked and unmistakable. The well-pronounced
Indian nose can always be easily distinguished from the European nose
by persons who have had a long acquaintance with both races. But cases
do occur where even an experienced observer would feel some doubt in
expressing an opinion as to which type a given nose belonged. Such
cases are, however, not common.
[Sidenote: K 2a]
From the pedigrees of families derived from a mixed racial parentage
in my possession, I select two for exhibition at this Congress. The
first is that known as "Family 5" in my list. In this case a Scotchman
(Generation A, S) married a full-blood Indian woman. They had a son and
daughter (Generation B, 2 and 3). The half-breed son had the Indian
type of nose. The daughter had a small and well-shaped European nose.
The son married a full-blood Indian woman (Generation B, 1) and had
four children. Two of these were infants at the time my informant knew
them, and though they were described as being generally of the Indian
type, they were too young to give any reliable details concerning the
form of the nose. The two elder children (Generation C, 1 and 2) were a
daughter and a son, and both had the Indian type of nose.
The half-breed daughter (Generation B, 4) married twice. Her first
husband was a half-breed Indian (B 3). He was not seen by my informant.
They had a son and a daughter (Generation C, 5 and 6). The former
was Indian in type of nose as well as in other facial characters.
The daughter, though she had very decided Indian cheek bones, had
the European type of nose. She is of further interest, inasmuch
as while her eye-colour was European the shape of her eyes was
characteristically Indian.
The second husband of the half-breed daughter was a Welshman
(Generation B, W). By him she had seven children. The last was a baby
at the time my informant saw it, and we may leave it out of account.
The penultimate child was a son (Generation C, 12), and his nose was
sunken, and my informant found it difficult to say whether it was
European or Indian in type. I rather suspect from an inspection of some
photographs of Indians which I have seen that it resembles a very
concave flattened Indian type. Of the remaining five children, four had
an European type and one an Indian type of nose.
Assuming that my informant's observations and memory are accurate--and
I feel sure they are quite reliable since he spent many years among
the Indians and half-breeds of North America in company with other
Europeans, and he is a man of naturally sharp discernment--this family
shows clear evidence of the segregation of nose type. It is shown more
particularly in the children of the half-breed daughter who married
twice, since among her offspring (Generation C, 5-13) both types of
nose appeared. The re-appearance of the European nose was manifested,
not only when she was mated back to an European in her second marriage,
but when she married a half-breed like herself. This latter marriage,
however, did not constitute, as we might at first sight regard it, an
experimental mating in every way analogous to a Mendelian cross of DR
x DR; because although she was a half-breed her nose was not like her
brother's of the Indian type, but European.
It thus appears as though the Indian nose was dominant in one case,
and the European in the other. Too much stress must not be laid on
this point. So many half-breeds are indistinguishable from full-blood
Indians, that the possibility is to be borne in mind that this woman's
mother, who was married to the Scotchman, was not really a full-blood
Indian, and that tradition was in error. I am, however, making further
inquiries.
But Mendelian segregation is shown in this pedigree in another way. The
granddaughter (Generation C, 6), by the first husband, manifested, as
already indicated, an European type of nose and European eye-colour.
She also manifested other European characters, with which I do not
now purpose dealing. But her cheek bones were decidedly Indian and
the shape of her eyes were also Indian. Thus we have the segregation
in the same individual of the characters of two distinct races of
men. In other words, there has been segregation of racial characters
followed by their recombination in a hybrid race. That is a fact of
some importance, in what we may designate as anthropological Eugenics,
or, if we prefer it, as the Eugenics of Anthropology. For it turns our
thoughts to the possibility of calling into being a more perfect type
of men by the recombination of the better alternative qualities of two
less perfect races.
[Sidenote: K 2b]
The second pedigree exhibited is that of "Family 4" in my list. I am
indebted to another informant for the facts of this pedigree, and they
relate to another part of North America. In this case a Frenchman
(Generation A, F) married a full-blood Indian Princess, namely, a
daughter of a Chief. She had one only daughter (Generation B, 2) whose
nose was of the Indian type, but rather flat.
The daughter married an Irishman (Generation B, 1), and they had six
children. Of these three had European types of nose and three the
Indian type (Generation C, 1-6).
This family shows again an apparently clean segregation of Indian
and European types of nose. The two types appear, side by side, in
different individuals of the same fraternity.
THE SEGREGATION OF RACIAL EYE-COLOUR.
By Geo. P. Mudge.
It is a matter of importance to know the exact influence which a
mixture of races exerts upon the hereditary transmission of characters.
For instance, do the alternative characters of two races of men, when
they are related by marriage, segregate in inheritance in accordance
with Mendelian principles? Is the term "blending or fusion of races
misleading, and only accurate when employed in a qualified sense"?