CASE FOR EUGENICS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 96, 20 October 1933, Page 9

CASE FOR EUGENICS

PROPAGATION OP UNFIT)

POSITION IN BRITAIN

LONDON, October 19,

Lord Horder, when inaugurating posti graduate lectures at Hampstead Hospu jtal, said that a national stocktaking had produced some most unpalatable facts*

Britain was staggered during the wan time to find that only one of three re« cruits, aged sevonteen to eighteen, was perfectly sound. Today on« in 120 i« feeble-minded, one in 200 is irisano, ami one in 10 is over-dull or over-sickly toS be absorbed in industry.

The nation was' making enormous ex* penditure to educate and maintain these inefficients, but this was not ag serious as the fact that the future stock ■was being continually recruited from these people. He pointed out that the eugenit^ movement sought to operate volun» tarily; it advocated sterilisation oij mental defectives and mental conval* escents, also sufferers from transmis* sible defects. • - ..

Lord Horder urged that medical stu* dents i should be taught genetics, reiiH forcing the doctors' knowledge of man;ej diseases, also enabling them to properijj adyise thoso contemplating marriage. He feared that many doctors were stilt unable to give scientific advice on coii^ traccption.