"The Royal Commission devoted much attention to the causation of mental defect, and arrived at the conclusion that feeble-mindedness is largely inherited; that prevention of mentally defective persons from becoming parents would tend to diminish the numbers of such persons in the population; and that, consequently, there are the strongest grounds for placing mental defectives of each sex in institutions where they will be detained and kept under effectual supervision as long as may be necessary. Public opinion would not, the Royal Commission think, sanction legislation directed to the prevention of hereditary transmission of mental defect by surgical or other artificial measures, and they regard restrictions on the marriage of persons of unsound mind as inadvisable, in view of the fact that this form of mental disability is often of a limited or temporary character. As respects, however, congenital and incurable forms of mental defect, no such considerations apply, and the only remedy is to place persons so suffering under such restrictions as to make procreation impossible. The Royal Commission were evidently much impressed by the evidence they received, which we can from our own experience amply corroborate, of the large number of weak-minded women and girls to be found in the work-houses throughout the country, who go there to be delivered of illegitimate children, and they invite your Lordship and the Secretary of State for the Home Department to consider whether the existing law provides adequate protection for mentally defective persons against sexual crime and immorality.... Sterilisation of men can be effectively achieved by simple vasectomy or section of the vas deferens, and of women by the almost equally simple and harmless method of ligature of the Fallopian tubes (Kehrer's method as advocated by Kisch). It would appear that both these operations may be effected by skilled hands in a few minutes with a minimum of pain and inconvenience, and they possess the immense advantage that the sexual glands are preserved, and no organ removed from the body.[1] (1) It is probable, also, that the method of sterilisation by X-rays may some day acquire practical importance. In this case there is no operation at all, though the effects do not last for more than a few years. This might be an advantage in some cases. See _British Medical Journal_, August 13th, 1904; ib. March 11th, 1905; ib. July 6th, 1907; ib. August 21st, 1909." [Footnote: 1] (Havelock Ellis in the "Eugenics Review," London, Eng.)