HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 285, 1 December 1934, Page 8

HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT.

Major Dagger's remarks on tlie necessity, for the sterilisation of degenerates, together with the cases he cites, must draw attention what is undoubtedly a very serious state of affairs. At the same time, he tells only part of the story. While it is generally true that children horn of healthy stock must have a better start in life than those born of less healthy parentis, other things being equal, the part played by heredity in the transmission of disease is not nearly so great as some people would have us believe. In this connection the story of the Papworth tuberculosa I village is highly illuminating. The founder, Sir Pendrill Varrier-Jones, states that "in tins village of over 400 persons after sixteen years experience no child born in the settlement has, while a member of the community, contracted tuberculosis ... in any known clinical form . . . yet these . healthy children aie the offspring of parents who suffer , from tuberculosis." He explains these favourable results as follows: (1) Adequate food supply; (2) which is made possible because there 15 an adequate and prolonged parental income maintained by means of assured employment; (3) freedom from anxiety as to loss ot employment; (4) no risk of unemployment after breakdown; (.">) proper housing. To sum up, economic conditions determine the spread or otherwise of disease." Xo one could condone the breeding of hopeless degenerates, but sterilisation is merely treating the endproducts and leaving the cause untouched; 't ! smacks of maintaining an ambulance at tj' c | foot of the cliff instead of a fence at the top. REGENERATE.