ROYAL SOCIETY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 246, 15 September 1936, Page 5

ROYAL SOCIETY

MONTHLY MEETING. TWO PAPERS READ. Two very interesting papers were given before the Manawatu branch of the Royal Society when there was a large audience. The chair was taken by the president (Mr J. C. Neill).who introduced Dr. E. IV. Dry, who spoke on “Eugenics.” Dr. Dry defined his subject as the science of being well-born, that is, born with a good hereditary endowment. There were two aspects of the subject, the discovery of how people are well-born, and tne practical job of seeing that they are. The first part ol : the question depends largely on heredity, and here Dr. Dry illustrated the power!ul forces of heredity by lantern slides showing the results of Ins own experience in breeding lambs of a particular type, in which he had been very successful. In a few years’ time he expected to be able to present a ram lliat would get all its lambs like itself, whatever ewe it was mated with. It was possible very to get exactly what one bred for. This fact was applicable to the human race equally with the lower animals. Breed from Huxleys and Haldanes, and you get cleverer stock than if you pick your breeding material at random; breed from undesirables and you invito trouble, said the speaker. Dr. Dry then referred to two short but vitally important publications describing investigations among humans. The hrst, “Crime and Destiny,” by Lange, dealt with twins with criminal tendencies. Lange showed that in the case ol non-identical twins the other •brother was a criminal in one out of sixteen cases; in identical twins, where the heredity was exactly the same, the other brother was a criminal thirteen times in sixteen, a proportion so Large as to prove that, though environment must enter in, heredity is enormously important in criminality. “This evidence,” said Dr. Dry, “it may be remarked in passing, is an argument lor the abolition of capital punishment.” The second publication was a paper hv Hurst of Cambridge, who investigated English country families, and Royal families, grading parents and children for intelligence. “He puts forward the theory that a single Mendelian dominant factor exists lor mediocrity, and if yon have this, whatever other hereditary factors for brilliance you have, you will remain mediocre. If you do not carry this factor, you may he anything, according to the factors you have received. But supposing both you and your wife are brilliant, your child may be equally brilliant ; but there is far more chance that he will be a hopeless dud, not merely mediocre, than if you had married a less brilliant wife. This emphasises that no credit attaches to us for being born clever or dull, a fact which is pertinent to rewards as well as punishments, and also that breeding for cleverness is a very complicated business. Dr. Dry then passed to the-practical application of these theories. He showed slides of some ugly physical defects which are interited, as dwarfism, and referred to a long and rather terrifying list of abnormalities _ which arc passed on in this way, which should be prevented by not allowing such people to breed. “There is very little else about which one can he definite at present. There are a great number of ‘snags' about breeding. In the first place we know very little about the details of human inheritance. Then there is the difficulty of detecting abnormality.” Dr. Dry illustrated by diagrammatic slides the way red: in cows mated with black, and albinism m mice, was a Mendelian recessive; that is, that it may not he apparent in one generation, but is nevertheless latent, and is carried by some individuals—impossible to distinguish which to the next generation. This unfortunately applied to a certain forny of feeblemindedness. X-ray experiments had gone a long way to settle the problem with individual mice, but there was no human test. Another difficulty was the perennial one of distinguishing between the effects of nature and nurture, resistance to tuberculosis being a case in point. There was the danger of throwing away the good with the bad. Both tuberculosis and mental instability were associated with genius, and Bateson had pointed out that eugenic squeamishness might have robbed the world of Beethoven and Keats. And the same man had emphasised the difficulty of deciding wliat were good and what'bad human faculties.

Dr. Dry said that the distinct financial strain of bringing up a large family adequately in our society could be relieved by the endowment of parenthood and by the State education of talent. This the State could do, and then something could be begun in eugenics. The speaker concluded with the hope that this democracy under the Southern Cross would lead the way.

MR WEBSTER’S ADDRESS. Mi- Neill then introduced Mr W. M. Webster, who spoke on “artificial insemination.” Mr Webster described how in stud breeding they proceeded by progeny tests, and occasionally there appeared a “prepotent sire” ; that is, an animal capable of transmitting lus characteristics to his descendants in a marked degree. When, however, this sire was discovered, he usually had only a few active and useful years before him, and the problem was how to use him to the fullest advantage. This was where artificial insemination could be used. The practice was not new. Since the seventeenth century microscopists had been investigating the phenomena of reproduction, and when last century the last mystery was disclosed Ivanoit, in Russia, applied artificial insemination to horse breeding with a marked degree of success. Before the war reasonable accuracy was achieved by comparatively crude methods. During and directly after the war the Russians were faced with a serious depletion of their live stock, and it was part of the Five-Year-Plan to remedy this. There was established a large plant and a team of workers to study artificial insemination, and a high percentage of success had been achieved. “Artificial insemination,” said Mr Webster, “is now beyond the experimental stage, and has a place and a function in New Zealand.” He illustrated its value from the case of a Waikato bull whose progeny, whatever the dam he was mated with, gave a high productivity. His own experiments had shown a 70 per cent, success, which was as high as the Russian claim. A'discussion followed on both papers, in which a number of the very large audience joined, and a motion of thanks put by the chairman was carried by acclamation.