RACIAL IMPROVEMENT.
A few months ago Alajor Leonard Darwin published a book in which he suggested that much of the physical, mental, and moral weakness at present impoverishing society could only be “bred out” of the race. He advocated the spread of knowledge of the importance of sound breeding, the making of family restriction a condition of State relief, and the sterilisation of certain types of mental and physical unfitness. ‘ Professor Leonard Hill, F.R.S., in the September number of the “English Review,” takes up the age-old discussion of the claims of heredity, as against environment, and in an article entitled “Eugenic Reform versus Preventive Medicine,” maintains that many of the defects which Alajor Darwin thinks can bo cured only by breeding can be dealt with by preventive medicine. Professor Hill says “The cugenist has studied statistically the effect of the use, or non-use, of the tooth-brush on the decay of school children’s teeth, and, finding no evidence of the utility of the brush, wishes to breed a stock resistive to caries. But the student of preventive medicine recognises that the wild animal and the wild man and the domestic animals do not use tooth brushes, and scarcely suffer at all from decay.” More ultra-violet rays in city atmosphere, and more fruit and green food, less refinement of bread and cereals, less sugar, more exercise, is the answer of preventive medicine to the dental problem. The cretinous children of goitrous parents may be eliminated by preventing goitre, which can be done by ensuring the presence of a minute quantity of iodine in the yearly diet. “The cugenist from a. statistical inquiry concludes that cases of pulmonary tuberculosis treated in sanatoria live no longer than those treated at home,” says Professor Hill, “and looking on such State-aided curative methods as a vain waste of money and effort, seeks to limit the breeding of the tuberculosis. The medical expert’s answer is that most people go into sanatoria too late, and do not keep discipline. Children in sanatoria do very well and babies removed from tuberculosis parents, or even living under open-air conditions in a tuberculous colony with their parents, grow up perfectly healthy. There is no clear evidence that a diminution in the fertility of all tubercular patients would exert anything approaching the effects which could be reached in a very few years by the methods of preventive medicine. Tuberculosis all over the world is a disease arising from bad environment, from life in crowded, confined homes and workshops, and a diet deficient in vital principles, such as pertains in cities.” In agriculture it is the special scourge of the young, because under the poorly-paid conditions of British farming the adult wage-earner gets the best of the food. Among the industrial classes in towns it is a disease of the adult, commencing with Lis entry into crowded and dust-laden workrooms. On the Rand, in South Africa, the tuberculosis deathrate among the natives has been lowered from 30 to 3 per cent. Opportunity has much to do with the development ot genius and exceptional ability. Boys who escaped from an institute for the feeble-minded and enlisted during the ! V!| r became N.C.O.’s. The conclusion is that social reformers should concentrate attention on developing the vast powers of preventive medicine rather than on any plans for the ster- • ilisation of the unlit. \
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Dunstan Times, Issue 3352, 20 December 1926, Page 7
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594RACIAL IMPROVEMENT. Dunstan Times, Issue 3352, 20 December 1926, Page 7
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