Part 1

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Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).

Text enclosed by plus signs is underscored (+underscored+).

Male and Female symbols are shown as [M] and [F] respectively and denoting physical defects as [M-] and [F-] respectively.

Subscripted numbers are enclosed by curly brackets following a single underscore (example: F_{2}).

ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS READ AT THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL EUGENICS CONGRESS,

University of London. July, 1912.

English.

Charles Knight & Co., Ltd., 227-239, Tooley Street, London, S.E.

CONTENTS.

Section I.

Biology and Eugenics.

PAGE

I. Variation and Heredity in Man 5 G. SERGI.

II. On the Increase of Stature in Certain European Populations 6 SOREN HANSEN.

III. The So-called Laws of Inheritance in Man 7 V. GUIFFRIDA-RUGGERI.

IV. The Inheritance of Fecundity 8 RAYMOND PEARL.

V. Ethnic Psychology and the Science of Eugenics 9 ENRICO MORSELLI.

VI. The Inheritance of Epilepsy 10 DAVID F. WEEKS.

VII. The Influence of the Age of Parents on the Psycho-Physical Characters of the Offspring 12 ANTONIO MARRO.

VIII. Genetics and Eugenics 15 R. C. PUNNETT.

Section II.

Practical Eugenics.

I. General Considerations upon "Education before Procreation" 17 A. PINARD.

II. Practical Organization of Eugenic Action 18 LOUIS QUERTON.

III. Marriage Laws and Customs 19 C. B. DAVENPORT.

IV. Eugenic Selection and the Origin of Defects 20 FRÉDÉRIC HOUSSAY.

V. Preliminary Report of the Committee of Eugenics Section of the American Breeders' Association upon the Best Practical Means for Cutting off the Defective Germ Plasm 21 B. VAN WAGENEN.

Section IIa.

Education and Eugenics.

VI. Eugenics and the New Social Consciousness 22 S. G. SMITH.

VII. Practical Eugenics in Education 23 F. C. S. SCHILLER.

Section III.

Sociology and Eugenics.

I. The Psycho-Physical Elite and the Economic Elite 24 ACHILLE LORIA.

II. The Cause of the Inferiority of Physical and Mental Characters in the Lower Social Classes 26 ALFREDO NICEFORO.

III. The Fertility of Marriages according to Profession and Social Position 27 LUCIEN MARCH.

IV. Eugenics and Militarism 28 VERNON L. KELLOGG.

V. Eugenics in Party Organization 29 R. MICHELS.

VI. The Influence of Race on History 30 W. C. D. and C. D. WHETHAM.

VII. Some Inter-Relations between Eugenics and Historical Research 31 F. A. WOODS.

VIII. Demographical Contributions to the Problems of Eugenics 32 C. GINI.

IX. Maternity Statistics of the State of Rhode Island, State Census of 1905 34 F. L. HOFFMANN.

Section IV.

Medicine and Eugenics.

I. The Prophylaxis of Hereditary Syphilis and its Eugenic Effect 36 H. HALLOPEAU.

II. Alcohol and Eugenics 37 A. MJOËN.

III. Alcoholism and Degeneracy 38 M. MAGNAN AND M. FILLASSIER.

IV. Eugenics and Obstetrics 39 AGNES BLUHM.

V. Heredity and Eugenics in Relation to Insanity 40 F. W. MOTT.

VI. The Place of Eugenics in the Medical Curriculum 42 H. E. JORDAN.

VII. A Healthy Sane Family showing Longevity in Catalonia 43 I. VALENTI VIVO.

VIII. Some Remarks on Backward Children 43 RAOUL DUPUY.

Section I.

Biology and Eugenics.

VARIATION AND HEREDITY IN MAN. (Abstract.)

By Professor G. Sergi, _Professor of Anthropology, Rome_.

In his paper Professor G. Sergi wishes to show that in man after his morphological characteristics are established there occur no profound variations to change the typical forms which are naturally persistent.

The principal discussion concerns the different forms of the skull which are important as characteristics of race. Professor Sergi distinguishes in the human skull two principal and primordial forms: the dolichomorphic and the brachymorphic are both very ancient, as they are found contemporaneously in European human fossils. Consequently he attacks the idea of the transformation of one form into another. He does not find it demonstrated that the dolichomorphic type is transformed into the brachymorphic, and considers the causes adduced for this supposed transformation insufficient. It is neither the effect of environment of the plains or of the mountains, or the climatic influence of extreme cold, or the increase of volume of the brain supposed to be due to greater cerebral activity owing to a more developed culture, that the form of the skull is transformed into another type. All these suppositions are contrary to facts, because dolichomorphic and brachymorphic skulls are found alike in mountain and plain, in northern and southern regions, among primitive and civilized populations, in fact without any distinction.

The mutations that are believed to be found in the different populations are due to the effect of intermixture and penetration of new demographical elements, and not to the transformation of forms. That is also proved by the crossing of the two different human types from which no intermediary forms are derived: but instead there occurs in the heredity a segregation analagous to that under the Mendelian theory. If this were not so, to-day after many thousands of years of intermixture of the most diverse races, there would be but a single form derived from transformation; the demonstration of the facts proves that this has not occurred.

There is a great persistence in human physical forms, the variability is minimum after the formation of the races, and does not effect the changes of type.

The same fact can be noticed for the external characteristics of man, such as the colour of the skin, the colour and form of the hair, and the colour of the iris. It is solely in the crossings that there can be intermediary formations which have not indefinite heredity, because the segregation of characteristics takes place also in this case.

But the studies and observations on this matter are still incomplete, especially according to the Mendelian theory, and there is need of new and careful observation.

As to the pathological inheritance, there exist facts that confirm it in a general way, but the laws under which this heredity occurs have not been fully verified.

ON THE INCREASE OF STATURE IN CERTAIN EUROPEAN POPULATIONS.

(Abstract.)

By Soren Hansen, M.D.,

_Director of the Danish Anthropological Survey, Copenhagen._

The improvement in stature in many European countries during the past 50 years is generally ascribed simply to improved hygienic and economic conditions, but the question is really very intricate. The presence of different racial elements, social selection with its tendency to draw the well-made into towns, and the falling death-rate, etc., complicate the investigations. In all countries there is a great lack of truly comparable data from earlier years. The British Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, for example, though it collected an enormous amount of material, was unsuccessful in its endeavours to solve the main question. Single cases, e.g., the comparison of factory children with the boys of the York Quaker school (Anthropometric Committee, Brit. Ass. 1883), are certainly of great interest, but how can such cases be taken to represent the average?

Other countries possess a rich source of information in their conscription lists. Thus, in Denmark these lists show an unmistakable increase of 3.7 cm. (1-1/2 inch) in the average height of the adult Dane during the past 50-60 years. Similar increases are noted from Norway, Sweden and Holland. This increase suggests that there may have been more or less periodic waves of increase and decrease in height, since, on the one hand, we cannot imagine such an increase continuing indefinitely, and on the other, we know that the men of, say, 1000 years ago were quite as tall as they are at present. What are the agencies alternately improving or impairing the racial qualities? First of all, have we sufficiently exact, numerical information regarding the racial qualities?

A critical examination of all available data is very necessary. For example, the weight of new-born children is stated to have increased in England by 59 and 82 grams during the past 20 years, and in Denmark we can point to an increase of 40 grams in 35 years. But when we consider all the possible sources of error, it must be admitted that these statements, and especially the former, require confirmation. The material is not homogenous. Again, it is stated, that the average height of adult women in France has increased by 3 cm. in the last 80 years--but when we read that the total number of measurements in the last period was only 255, we cannot rely very much upon this statement.

On the whole, it may be said, that we have a few cases of definite increase and a goodly number very doubtful. We really need to have the first of the principal recommendations of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration carried out in all countries, for, the more we subject the available data to critical scrutiny, the more we see the hopelessness of attaining to any real and fruitful conclusions, unless we have an efficient organisation of capable workers, backed by governmental as well as private support.

THE SO-CALLED LAWS OF INHERITANCE IN MAN.

(Abstract.)

By Professor V. Guiffrida-Ruggeri,

_Professor of Anthropology, Naples._

The Mendelian laws find verification in man. Every race, whether a sub-species or a variety, has an hereditary possession of certain characters; a possession which is completely transmitted to the descendants, in whom is preserved the same germ plasm as in the progenitors.

The researches of C. B. and G. Davenport seem to have proved the recessive character of albinism and its obedience to the Mendelian law. Hurst has presented figures which show that the inheritance of colour in the iris of the human eye obeys Mendelian laws. Davenport has established the order of dominance by the form of hair, which also obeys the Mendelian law.

De Quatrefages, many years before the re-affirmation of Mendel's discoveries, wrote:--

"The union of individuals of different races involves a contest between their two natures--a contest of which the theatre is the field where the new being is organised. Now, this contest does not take place _en bloc_, so to speak, as has been generally admitted. Each of the characters of the two parents struggles on its own account against the corresponding character (its antagonist, as has just been said). When the hereditary energy is equal on both sides there necessarily ensues a kind of process of which the consequence is the fusion of the maternal and paternal characters in an intermediate character. If the energies are very unequal the hybrid inherits a character borrowed entirely from one of his parents; but this parent, conqueror on one point, may be conquered upon another. Hence, there results with the hybrid a _juxtaposition_ of characters derived from each of the types of which he is the child."

Above all, I have wished to call attention to the so-called laws of dominance, because of their great importance. We may conclude that in the case of man the dominant characters are also the original ones.

THE INHERITANCE OF FECUNDITY.

(Abstract.)

By Raymond Pearl,

_Biologist, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station._

The purpose of this paper is to give an account (necessarily abbreviated, and without presentation of complete evidence) of the results of an investigation into the mode of inheritance of fecundity in the domestic fowl, and to point out some of the possible eugenic bearings of these results.

It is shown that while the continued selection, over a period of years, of highly fecund females failed to bring about any change in average fecundity of the strain used, this character must nevertheless be inherited since pedigree lines have been isolated which uniformly breed true to definite degrees of fecundity.

It is further shown that observed variations in actually realized fecundity (number of eggs laid) do not depend upon anatomical differences in respect to the number of visible oöcytes in the ovary. The differential factor on which the variations in fecundity depend must be primarily physiological.

Fecundity in the fowl is shown to be inherited in strict accord with the following Mendelian plan:--

1. Observed individual variations in fecundity depend essentially upon two separately inherited physiological factors (designated L_{1}, and L_{2}).

2. _High_ fecundity is manifested only when both of these factors are present together in the same individual.

3. Either of these factors when present alone, whether in homozygous or heterozygous form, causes about the same degree of _low_ fecundity to be manifested.

4. One of these factors, namely L_{2}, is sex-limited or sex-correlated in its inheritance, in such way that in gametogenesis any gamete which bears the female sex-determinant F does not bear L_{2}.

5. There is a definite and clear-cut segregation of high fecundity from low fecundity, in the manner set forth above.

From the standpoint of eugenics it is pointed out that these results furnish a new conception of the mode of inheritance of fecundity, and may be helpful in suggesting a method of attacking the same problem for man.

ETHNIC PSYCHOLOGY AND THE SCIENCE OF EUGENICS.

(Abstract.)

By Prof. Enrico Morselli,

_Director of the Clinic for Mental and Nervous Diseases, Genoa University_.

All natural varieties or races of mankind differ, not only by their physical, but also by their mental, characters. There exists, therefore, an "Ethnic Psychology" which, along with "Ethnic Somatology," constitutes the complete Science of Anthropology or the Natural History of Man. This must describe and classify races and populations under a double aspect--physical and psychical.

The psychical characters of races are in part _original_, and in part acquired through _adaptation_. These persist in a race as long as such mesological adaptation lasts; they vary with modifications of the conditions of life, including social activities and inter-racial relations.

In mixed unions, amongst different races, there are always some which are more vigorous, biologically and mentally, more fully developed, which impress their characters upon their descendants. For the vitality and well-being of mixed or metamorphic populations a certain amount of difference amongst the parent races is necessary, but too great a difference is injurious to the offspring.

The offspring of mixed unions present in their psychology a _mixture_, again a _combination_ or fusion of the mental characters of the parent races: sometimes certain psychical characters of a race become the _dominant_ characters.

All ethnic groupings have their destiny marked out by the grade attained in _the human psycho-physical hierarchy_. Nevertheless, it is necessary that each race or nation, when it knows its contribution to the development of universal civilisation, should contemplate the preservation of its own ethnic type. Differentiation amongst peoples is an indispensable factor in human progress.

The science of eugenics should not look for the realisation of a uniform type of man, but vary its aims and methods according to the natural differentiation of races and nations, taking account of ethnic psychology equally with ethnic somatology.

The humanity of the future will be physically and mentally superior to the existing humanity, but the _amelioration of the species_ ought not to aim at the equality of races and populations. These races and populations ought not to lose their acquisition of particular adaptations to different conditions of existence.

A science of universal or common eugenics should allow a eugenic ethnology to exist, which should indicate and facilitate for each race or nation the defence and propagation of its own _physical type_ and its own _mentality_. The most vigorous and dominant races will always be those which know how to create and preserve in sexual unions their characteristics of structure and culture.

THE INHERITANCE OF EPILEPSY.

(Abstract.)

By David Fairchild Weeks, M.D.,

_Medical Superintendent and Executive Officer, the New Jersey State Village for Epileptics at Skillman, U.S.A._

In this paper the writer has endeavoured to learn what laws, if any, epilepsy follows in its return to successive generations, and the relation it bears to alcoholism, migraine, paralysis, and other symptoms of lack of neural strength.

The data used in the study was analysed according to the Mendelian method which assumes that the inheritance of any character is not from the parents, grandparents, etc., but from the germ plasm out of which every fraternity and its parents and other relatives have arisen. If the soma possesses the trait of the recessive to normality sort, it lacks in its germ plasm the determiner upon which the normal development depends, and this condition is called nulliplex. If the soma possesses the trait of the dominant to normality sort, the determiner was derived from both parents and is double in the germ plasm, or normal, all of the germ cells have the determiner; or else it came from one parent only, is single in the germ plasm, or simplex, and half of the germ cells have and half lack the determiner.

The method of obtaining the data was by means of field workers, who interviewed in their homes the parents, relatives and all others interested in the epileptic patient. These visits have established a friendly feeling toward and an intelligent understanding of the Institution and its work.

The study is based on the data derived from 397 histories, covering 440 matings.

The matings are classified under the six possible types, of nulliplex × nulliplex, nulliplex × simplex, nulliplex × normal, simplex × simplex, simplex × normal, and normal × normal.

Under the first type all those matings where both parents were epileptic, one was epileptic and the other feeble-minded, or both were feeble-minded, are classified. According to Mendel's Law, all of the children should be nulliplex. The data showed all of the children defective.

Under the type nulliplex × simplex, all matings where one parent was epileptic or feeble-minded and the other "tainted," that is, alcoholic, neurotic, migrainous, or showed some mental weakness, are classified. From this type of mating, 50% of the offspring are expected to be nulliplex and 50% simplex. From the matings where one parent was epileptic or feeble-minded and the other alcoholic, there were 61% mentally deficient or nulliplex, the remainder simplex. The figures for the offspring from the other matings showed 47% nulliplex, and 53% simplex.

For the third type, nulliplex by normal, all those matings where one parent was epileptic or feeble-minded and the other reported as mentally normal are classified. From this type of mating, the expectations are that all of the children would be simplex. A study of the ancestors of the normal parents showed these parents simplex rather than normal. The analysis of the offspring showed at least 43% nulliplex, which is a close fitting to the type of mating nulliplex × simplex.

The fourth type of mating is simplex × simplex. Here, all matings where both of the parents were "tainted" are classified. The expectation is that 25% of the offspring would be nulliplex, in reality 35% were found to be mentally deficient.

Simplex × normal is the fifth type of mating considered. The matings where one parent was tainted and the other supposedly normal, are classified here. From a study of their ancestors these normal parents appeared to be simplex, and the classification of the offspring showed more than 25% nulliplex, which is the expectation from simplex × simplex mating.

The sixth type is normal × normal, and the matings where both parents were reported normal is studied under this heading. Here, as before, a study of the ancestors of these normal parents indicates that they are simplex, and not normal. The classification of the children showed a close fitting to the expectation from a simplex × simplex mating.

A special study of the matings where one or both of the parents was migrainous or alcoholic, shows a close relationship between these conditions and epilepsy.

The following conclusions are drawn from the study.

The common types of epileptics lack some element necessary for complete mental development. This is also true of the feeble-minded.

Two epileptic parents produce only defectives. When both parents are either epileptic or feeble-minded their offspring are also mentally defective.

Epilepsy tends in successive generations to form a larger part of the population.

The normal parents of epileptics are not normal but simplex, and have descended from tainted ancestors.

Alcohol may be a cause of defect in that more children of alcoholic parents are defective than where alcoholism is not a factor.

Neurotic and other tainted conditions are closely allied with epilepsy.

In the light of present knowledge, epilepsy, considered by itself, is not a Mendelian factor, but epilepsy and feeble-mindedness are Mendelian factors of the recessive type.

Tainted individuals, as neurotics, alcoholics, criminals, sex offenders, etc., are simplex and normals or simplex and normal in character.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE AGE OF PARENTS ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL CHARACTERS OF THE OFFSPRING.

(Abstract.)

By Antonio Marro,

_Director of the Lunatic Asylum, Turin._

The natural law of heredity holds good whether for the physical characteristics or for those which are biological and moral.

The apparent anomalies which children present in not reproducing the qualities of the parents, and the unlikeness frequently noted among the children of the same family, only serve to reveal the presence of the particular conditions of the parents at the time of begetting which has influenced the offspring.

We have a proof of this law in the anomalies presented by the children of parents who, at the time of begetting, were themselves in anomalous conditions by reason of intoxication or disease.