Applied Eugenics CHAPTER IX! ! !THE DYSGENIC CLASSES!

Applied Eugenics

CHAPTER IX

!THE DYSGENIC CLASSES!

!

Before examining the methods by which a eugenic society can put into effect some

!measure of negative or restrictive eugenics, it may be well to decide what classes of the population can properly fall within the scope of such treatment. Strictly speaking, the problem is of course one of individuals rather than classes, but for the sake of convenience it will be treated as one of classes, it being understood that no individual should be put under restriction with eugenic intent merely because he may be supposed to belong to a given class; but that each case must be investigated on its own merits,--and investigated with much more care than has hitherto usually been thought necessary by many of those who have advocated restrictive eugenic measures.

The first class demanding attention is that of those feeble-minded whose condition is due to eugenic heredity. There is reason to believe that at least

two-thirds of the feeble-minded in the United States owe their condition directly to heredity,[80] and will transmit it to a large per cent of

their descendants, if they have any. Feeble-minded persons from sound stock, whose arrested development is due to scarlet fever or some similar disease of childhood, or to accident, are of course not of

!direct concern to scientists of eugenics.

The feeble-minded are never of much value to society--they never present such instances as are found among the insane, of persons with some mental lack of balance, who are yet geniuses. If restrictive eugenics

!dealt with no other class than the hereditarily feeble-minded, and dealt with that class effectively, it would richly justify its existence.

But there are other classes on which it can act with safety as well as profit, and one of these is made up by the germinally insane. According to the census of 1910, there are 187,791 insane in institutions in the United States; there are also a certain number outside of institutions, as to whom information can not easily be obtained. The number in the hospitals represented a ratio of 204.3 per 100,000 of the general population. In 1880, when the enumeration of insane was particularly complete, a total of 91,959 was reported--a ratio of 188.3 per 100,000 of the total population at that time. This apparent increase of insanity has been subjected to much analysis, and it is admitted that part of it

!can be explained away. People are living longer now than formerly, and as insanity is primarily a disease of old age, the number of insane is thus increased.

!But when all is said, the fact remains that there are several hundred thousand insane persons in the United States, many of whom are not prevented from reproducing their kind, and that by this failure to restrain them society is putting a heavy burden of expense, unhappiness and a fearful dysgenic drag on coming generations.

The word "insanity," as is frequently objected, means little or nothing from a biological point of view--it is a sort of catch-all to describe

many different kinds of nervous disturbance. No one can properly be made the subject of restrictive measures for eugenic reasons, merely because

!he is said to be "insane." It would be wholly immoral so to treat, for example, a man or woman who was suffering from the form of insanity which sometimes follows typhoid fever. But there are certain forms of mental disease, generally lumped under the term "insanity," which indicate a hereditarily disordered nervous organisation, and individuals suffering from one of these diseases should certainly not be given any chance to perpetuate their insanity to posterity.

In general, the insane are more adequately restricted than any other dysgenic class in the community; not because the community recognises the disadvantage of letting them reproduce their kind, but because there is a general fear of them, which leads to their strict segregation; and because an insane person is not considered legally competent to enter into a marriage contract. In general, the present isolation of the sexes

at institutions for the insane is satisfactory; the principal problem which insanity presents lies in the fact that an individual is frequently committed to a hospital or asylum, kept there a few years

until apparently cured, and then discharged; whereupon he returns to his family to beget offspring that are fairly likely to become insane at

!some period in their lives. Every case of insanity should be accompanied by an investigation of the patient's ancestry, and if there is unmistakable evidence of serious neuropathic taint, such steps as are necessary should be taken to prevent that individual from becoming a parent at any time.

!The hereditary nature of most types of epilepsy is generally held to be established,[81] and restrictive measures should be used to prevent the increase of the number of epileptics in the country. It has been calculated that the number of epileptics in the state of New Jersey, where the most careful investigation of the problem has been made, will double every 30 years under present conditions.

In dealing with both insanity and epilepsy, the eugenist faces the difficulty that occasionally people of the very kind whose production he most wishes to see encouraged--real geniuses--may carry the taint. The exaggerated claims of the Italian anthropologist C. Lombroso and his school, in regard to the close relation between genius and insanity, have been largely disproved; yet there remains little doubt that the two

sometimes do go together; and such supposed epileptics as Mohammed, Julius Cæsar, and Napoleon will at once be called to mind. To apply sweeping restrictive measures would prevent the production of a certain amount of talent of a very high order. The situation can only be met by dealing with every case on its individual merits, and recognising that

!it is to the interests of society to allow some very superior individuals to reproduce, even though part of their posterity may be mentally or physically somewhat unsound.

!In addition to these well-recognised classes of hopelessly defective, there is a class of defectives embracing very diverse characteristics, which demands careful consideration. In it are those who are germinally physical weaklings or deformed, those born with a hereditary diathesis or predisposition toward some serious disease (e.g., Huntington's Chorea), and those with some gross defect of the organs of special sense. The germinally blind and deaf will particularly occur to mind in the latter connection. Cases falling in this category demand careful scrutiny by biological and psychological experts, before any action can be taken in the interest of eugenics; in many cases the affected individual himself will be glad to co-operate with society by remaining celibate or by the practice of birth control, to the end of leaving no offspring to bear what he has borne.

In a consideration of the chronic inebriate, the problem of environmental influences is again met in an acute form, aggravated by the venom of controversy engendered by bigotry and self-interest. That many chronic inebriates owe their condition almost wholly to heredity, and are likely to leave offspring of the same character, is

indisputable. As to the possibility of "reforming" such an individual, there may be room for a difference of opinion; as to the possibility of reforming his germ-plasm, there can be none. Society owes them the best possible care, and part of its care should certainly be to see that they

!do not reproduce their kind. As to the borderland cases--and in the matter of inebriety borderland is perhaps bigger than mainland--it is doubtful whether much direct action can be taken in the present state of scientific knowledge and of public sentiment. Education of public opinion to avoid marriage with drunkards will probably be the most effective means of procedure.

Finally, there is the criminal class, over which the respective champions of heredity and environment have so often waged partisan warfare. There is probably no field in which restrictive eugenics would

think of interfering, where it encounters so much danger as here--danger of wronging both the individual and society. Laws such as have been passed in several states, providing for the sterilisation of criminals

as such, must be deplored by the eugenist as much as they are by the pseudo-sociologist who "does not believe in heredity"; but this is not saying that there are not many cases in which eugenic action is desirable; for inheritance of a lack of emotional control makes a man in one sense a "born criminal."[83] He is not, in most respects, the

creature which he was made out to be by Lombroso and his followers; but he exists, nevertheless, and no ameliorative treatment given him will be

!of such value to society as preventing his reproduction.

!

This, we believe, covers all the classes which are at this time proper

subjects for direct restrictive action with eugenic intent; and we repeat that the problem is not to deal with classes as a whole, but to deal with individuals of the kind described, for the sake of convenience, in the above categories. Artificial class names mean nothing to evolution. It would be a crime to cut off the posterity of a

!desirable member of society merely because he happened to have been popularly stigmatised by some class name that carried opprobrium with it. Similarly it would be immoral to encourage or permit the reproduction of a manifestly defective member of society of the kinds indicated, even though that individual might in some way have secured the protection of a class name that was generally considered desirable. Bearing this in mind, we believe no one can object to a proposal to prevent the reproduction of those feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, grossly defective or hopelessly delinquent people, whose condition can be proved to be due to heredity and is therefore probably transmissible to their offspring. We can imagine only one objection that might be opposed to all the advantages of such a program--namely, that no proper means can be found for putting it into effect. This objection is occasionally urged, but we believe it to be wholly without weight. We now propose to examine the various possible methods of restrictive eugenics, and to inquire which of them society can most profitably adopt.

CALEB SALEEBY’S Parenthood & Race Culture: An Outline of Family Eugenics