How to Live - Eugene Lyman Fisk (top 100 novels of all time .txt) 📗
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Among traits known to be “recessive” are albinism (or lack of pigmentation), a certain degenerative disease of the eye, deafmutism, imbecility, insanity of certain types, certain nervous diseases; also mental traits, such as musical ability.
Suppose now that a normal or “strong-minded” person, if we may use that term as distinct from feeble-minded, marries a feeble-minded person. Assuming that the “strong-minded” person is a “thoroughbred” all of the children will be apparently normal. None will be feeble-minded. “Strong-mindedness” is dominant over weak-mindedness. Yet all these children that seem to be perfectly normal lack something in their bodies. This deficiency is simply covered up but can crop out in later generations. If two of these hybrids between the weak-minded and the strong-minded marry each other, one-quarter of the children will be feeble-minded, one-quarter thoroughbred strong-minded and the remaining half, though apparently strong-minded, will carry the taint in them just as their parents did. They are half-breeds. On the other hand, if two feeble-minded people marry, all of the children will be feeble-minded. Certainly we can and ought to forbid and prevent such marriages.
But feeble-mindedness is a recessive quality, so that if the feeble-minded marry only with normal individuals, the feeble-mindedness does not blight the next generation, and if these apparently normal children of such marriages take pains to marry only really normal individuals, avoiding not only the feeble-minded but even those like themselves who have feeble-mindedness on one side of their family tree, there will be no feeble-mindedness cropping out in future generations.
But not all human abnormalities are recessive. Thus Huntington’s chorea is dominant, so that every child of the unfortunate victim of this malady will contract it when it reaches the right age. Marriages of such people should, therefore, never be allowed, even with normal individuals.
But when we propose to restrict marriages or mating of those unfit to marry, people are apt to say, “That is a dream. It can’t be done.” But it can be done and it has been done. Every one has heard of the cretins in Switzerland. They are a kind of idiot who are short in stature and afflicted in all cases with goitre in the neck. Of course, many people have goitre who are not cretins, but there is no cretin who has not goitre. These cretins are peculiarly a feeble-minded people. They are common still in many towns of Switzerland; they are loathsome objects, helpless as children, with silly smiles, unable to take care of themselves in even the simplest toilet ways, and have to be looked after like domestic animals, or even more closely.
A gentleman very much interested in Eugenics visited Aosta, in Italy, just outside of Switzerland, once in 1900 and again in 1910. In 1900 he found many of these creatures among the beggars in the streets, in the asylums, in the home, in the orphan asylum—everywhere he ran across these awful apologies for human beings. But in 1910 he found only one! What had happened? Simply that a few resolute intelligent reformers had changed the entire situation. An isolation institution, or rather two institutions, one for the men and the other for the women, were established. In these the best care of the inmates was taken as long as they lived, and they do not live long. But pains were taken to see that by no possibility could marriage or mating of those people take place. They forfeited any such rights in return for the care that they received from the State.
Thus is it possible to apply the laws of heredity as laid down by Mendel in a thoroughly practical way and to get results immediately in one short generation. It seems, and it is, a colossal task to change average human nature one iota. Yet in the light of modern eugenics we could make a new human race in a hundred years if only people in positions of power and influence would wake up to the paramount importance of what eugenics means. And this could be done quietly and simply without violence to existing ideas of what is right and proper. It could be done by segregation of the sexes for defectives, feeble-minded, idiots, epileptics, insane, etc. By this kind of isolation we can save the blood-stream of our race from a tremendous amount of needless contamination.
And it is being done. The growing tendency to put defectives in institutions, though originally with no such object, will reduce the transmission of defects, especially when it is recognized that the sexes must be separated and that the inmates should be kept at the institution through the reproductive period of life.
It is inconceivable that the average individual will deliberately and consciously make his calculations regarding the character of possible offspring before he allows himself to fall in love to the point of desiring marriage. Yet unconsciously an educational influence on love and on marriage selection has been operating through centuries. The sick, the feeble-minded, the immoral, and members of their families, have at all times been socially handicapped, and have always been the first to be eliminated in marriage selection. And it is conceivable that this already developed wisdom in mate-choosing can easily be augmented by a further knowledge of heredity which is now available. It unconsciously favorably modifies the individual taste.
Certain races of men, without consciousness of their action, have varied in the character of their choices (sex selection) in such a way as to bring about varied conditions in their races, with respect to resistance to disease, of mental capacity and to moral quality. The Mongolian differs from the Hebrew, the Anglo-Saxon differs from the African.
It depends largely upon the action of those now upon the earth, who are now making their choices of marriage, as to whether the races of the future shall be physical, mental or moral weaklings, or whether they shall be physically brave and hardy, mentally broad and profound, and morally sterling.
To summarize: There are three main lines along which eugenic improvement of the race may be attained:
(1) Education of all people on the inheritability of traits; (2) segregation of defectives so that they may not mingle their family traits with those on sound lines; (3) sterilization of certain gross and hopeless defectives, to preclude the propagation of their type.
There would seem to be great need of State Eugenic Boards, to correlate and to promote these activities, in the interests of the future population, and to give expert advice as to how to legislate wisely, and individual advice as to how to mate wisely. The latter function now falls entirely upon the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, where the work is being carried on with great efficiency with the funds at command.
REFERENCES[57] Darbishire, A. D.: Breeding and the Mendelian Discovery, Cassell & Company, Ltd., London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne, 1911.
[58] Davenport, Chas. B.: Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1911.
[59] Dugdale, Robert L.: The Jukes, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London, 1910.
[60] Galton, Francis: Hereditary Genius, D. Appleton & Company, New York, 1870.
[61] Goddard, Henry H.: The Kallikak Family, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912.
[62] Kellicott, William E.: The Social Direction of Human Evolution, D. Appleton & Company, New York and London, 1911.
[63] Huth, Alfred Henry: Marriage of Near Kin, Longmans, Green & Company, London, 1887.
[64] Darwin, Charles: The Descent of Man, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, New York, 1874.
For further bibliographic lists, see bulletins entitled “Books and Journals,” and “Publications” issued by the Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.
INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Abdominal muscles, beneficial effects of erect posture on, 57. Acids, excess of, from overabundance of animal proteins in diet, 39; fruit and vegetable, in a mixed diet, 43. Activity, necessary to living a hygienic life, 89; work and play the two great forms, of, 89. Adulterants in foods, harmful, 65. Advertising, measures of reform in, 162–163. Agar-agar, a preventive of constipation, 52–53; for use in colds, 279. Air, the first necessity of life, 7; motion, coolness, humidity, and freshness of, important features of ventilation, 7; the matter of drafts, 8–9, 123–124, 274, 277; securing fresh, through windows, 9–10; prevention of stagnation of, by air-fans, 10; action of different heating systems, 10; importance of coolness of, 10–11; securing proper degrees of dryness and humidity, 11–12; lighting systems and, 13; evils of tobacco smoke and of dust, 13; bacteria in, carried by dust particles, 13–14; benefits of sunlight, 14; wearing of clothing which admits, 14–15, 275; benefits of out-of-door, 18–20, 276; outdoor sleeping, 20–24, 104, 220, 276; deep breathing, 24–27. Air-baths, taking of, 15–16, 148. Air-fans, use of, 10. Alcohol, modern movement against, 3; poisons in, 65, 241; ill effects of, 67–68; resistance to infectious diseases weakened by, 68; social evil traceable to, 123; to be avoided in cases of overweight, 216; statistics of influence of, on longevity, 227–235; per capita consumption of, in various countries, 235–236; laboratory and clinical evidence relating to physiological effects of, 236 ff.; effect on brain and the nervous system, 237–239; influence on bodily resistance to disease, 239–240; effect on heart and circulation, 240–241; food value of, 241–242; effect on offspring, 243; attitude of National Council of Safety toward, 244; condemnation of, shown by restrictive and prohibitive measures of governments, 244; references on subject of, 244–249. Alkaline dentifrices, 86. Amusements. See Recreation. Andalusian fowl, illustration from, of action of hereditary traits, 307–313. Anglo-Saxon race, effects of indoor living upon, 147. Animal cells, apparent immortality of, 142–
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