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
Table C 33 is a +comparison of the frequency of the various
causes of unfitness as between those qualified for the one year's
voluntary service and the recruits in general+. This table is very
remarkable, because it shows the preponderance of general weakness,
diseases of the heart and large vessels, and pulmonary defects among
the former.
[Illustration:
Military Fitness and Secondary Schools.
Percentage of unfit to every 100 recruits examined.
Cause of rejection: [A] [B] [C] [D] [E]
============================= ============================
General debility--weak chest. 12.2 14.1 13.6 15.1 9.6
Diseases of the heart and
large blood-vessels. 5.6 5.0 4.7 4.9 5.1
Defects of eyes (errors of
refraction). 4.5 3.8 2.7 2.6 2.8
Disease of the joints or limbs. 2.3 1.9 2.0 1.7 1.1
Pulmonary defects. 1.8 1.5 1.1 1.3 1.4
Key to Table
------------
[A] Classical High School.
[B] Old Science and Classical High School.
[C] Modern Science High School.
[D] Lower Grade High School.
[E] Training College.
Figure C 33.]
[Sidenote: C 34]
It goes without saying that the schools are only responsible to a
lesser degree for this; we have to deal here with a serious symptom
of a bad constitution amongst the higher social grades which betrays
itself also in the dying out of the socially prominent families. How
badly their progeny comes off, in spite of the great care bestowed
on it, is illustrated in Table C 34. In two Munich Regiments the
percentage of fit among all those entitled to offer themselves for the
one year's service from the most varied parts of Germany was only,
according to Dieudonné, 21.6, 20.1, and 16.4.
[Sidenote: C 35 & 36]
Great anxiety is justly caused by the increasing number of those
taken care of in public Lunatic Asylums. It remains doubtful to what
degree this may be due to the greater use made of asylums and the
decrease of the care of the mentally infirm in the family home; the
deterioration of the nervous system nevertheless remains according to
the general impression an incontestable fact. As a symptom of this
may be interpreted the increasing +number of suicides in civilised
countries+, demonstrated in Rüdin's Tables, C 35 and C 36, showing
the number of suicides in every one million of inhabitants.
More serious still than the frequency of mental and nervous diseases
is another phenomenon which demonstrates how unsatisfactory is the
constitutional condition of large circle of our population of to-day.
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