Abstracts of Papers Read at the First International Eugenics Congress: University of London, July, 1912International Eugenics Congress (1st : 1912 : London)
Science
Abstracts of Papers Read at the First International Eugenics Congress: University of London, July, 1912
International Eugenics Congress (1st : 1912 : London)
Eugenics -- Congresses
Here, too, we note a certain correlation between the state of
discontent, of suspicion, of frigid egoism, which the decline of
physical energy tends to arouse in the old, and the absence of
affectionate sentiment and a tendency to delusions of persecution which
are usual in murderers. Among the insane, moral idiocy in particular,
and the degenerative forms in general, appeared more frequently in
children of aged parents.
As to schoolboys, I have noticed that the minimum of good conduct
and the maximum of better developed intelligence coincides with the
possession of youth by both parents.
The age of complete development corresponds to a maximum of good
conduct and a minimum of bad conduct, and retains a large proportion of
intelligent children.
In the period of decline of both parents, good conduct of children is
observed in a smaller proportion than in the preceding period, and high
intelligence in a very small proportion.
Among biological qualities I have made observations on longevity; among
persons of 70 and 80 whom I have examined there is a large proportion
of parents who themselves enjoyed remarkably long lives, which proves
the transmissibility from father to son of powers of resistance against
the stresses of life.
Among physical qualities I have made note of the fact that from
alcoholic or aged parents were descended children in whom degenerative
physical characteristics were most frequently apparent, recalling some
features of an inferior human type, such as exaggeration of the frontal
sinuses, the torus occipitalis, ears with the Darwinian tubercles
prominent, the forehead receding, etc. At the same time the ascendants
of those who presented typical and anomalous characters, due to morbid
influences of various kinds and following on faulty development of
the foetus, such as cretinism, congenital goître, nasal deflections,
strabismus, plagio-cephaly, hydrocephaly, dental malformation, etc.,
showed a large number of alcoholics and epileptics.
The explanation of the pernicious consequences to the psycho-physical
characters of the children of parents too young or too advanced in age
does not present much difficulty.
At the younger period the organism is still in process of formation;
the incomplete development of the skeleton, as of all the other organs,
continually absorbs a mass of plastic materials necessary to the
formation of offspring. So we may consider that the faults of children
born of too young parents are due to an incomplete development because
of the insufficiency of plastic material.
We must, on the other hand, seek in the conditions which accompany old
age for the reason why it has a disastrous influence on the vitality of
the germinal elements of the parents and predisposes the descendants to
various forms of physical and moral degeneracy.
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