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
5. The most serious obstacles to delivery are effected by deformities
of the pelvis, in at least 90% of which heredity plays a part. In this
connection, rickets, the predisposition to which is inherited, takes
the foremost place.
6. German medical statistics make it appear probable that incapacity to
bear children is on the increase.
7. Medical help in childbirth brings, undoubtedly, numerical advantage
to the race, but it endangers the quality of the race in other ways
than through the fostering of unfitness for bearing.
8. The danger of the increase of incapacity for bearing through the
increase of assistance in childbirth can be combatted:--
(_a_) Through the renunciation of descendants by women unfitted to bear
children.
(_b_) Through an energetic campaign against rickets, to which only the
predisposition can be inherited.
(_c_) Through the permeation of obstetrics with the spirit of eugenics,
so that the obstetrician no longer proceeds according to a settled rule
(living mother and living child), but in each separate case takes into
consideration the interests of the race.
HEREDITY AND EUGENICS IN RELATION TO INSANITY.
(Abstract.)
By F. W. Mott, M.D., F.R.S.,
_Physician to Charing Cross Hospital and Pathologist to the London
County Asylums._
What is insanity? Every case of insanity is a biological problem,
the solution of which depends upon a knowledge of what a man was
born with--Nature--and what has happened after birth--Nurture. The
increase of registered insanity in London; the causes of the increase.
(1) The standard of insanity has been raised. (2) The increase of
accommodation for reception of the insane. The diminishing death rate
in asylums causing a progressive accumulation. The diminished number of
recoveries. (3) The large proportion of old people admitted to asylums
formerly in the infirmaries.
_Nurture._--The correlation of pauperism, insanity and
feeble-mindedness, alcohol, syphilis, and tuberculosis in relation
to insanity and feeble-mindedness. Congenital mental deficiency as
distinguished from hereditary mental deficiency. Chronic poisoning of
the blood by these agencies in relation to a lowered specific vitality
of the germ cells. Environment in relation to mental energy and will
power.
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