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PUBLIC HEALTH AND EDUCATION 219 eracy of the race which it prophesied presented a social emergency before which no social convention could stand. And the dogs were found not to be asleep. Innocence was already violated by an underground system of education—ignorant nurses, the gossip of unclean and misinformed companions, quacks, and patent medicine venders, sex books, and personal adventures. Allow one other consideration. While the size of the American family has been declining since the eighteenth century, enough babies are now born for our increasing native population. The insistent question is, "Born, but in what homes?" The upper grades of capacity are not maintaining themselves; the lower show an amazing fertility. The graduates of Harvard have .7 of a child on the average; of Vassar .5. A feeble-minded couple has an average of seven children. At this rate, two hundred years hence a thousand Harvard graduates will have fifty descendants, but a thousand Roumanians of Boston will have one hundred thousand. Recent biological opinion appears to favor general birth control as the only effective corrective of this menacing differential birth rate. It remains to ask what is to be done for the improvement of the race. The answer is easily made, but its practical application is thronged with difficulties. It is a commonplace of practical biology today to control heredity for the improvement of the stock of animals and plants. This has been done by selective breeding. The question is whether a like care and method would work in the case of man. There is now no doubt among men who have right to an opinion on the matter that while man walks at the head of the animal procession, he belongs to it, and that the processes and laws of heredity observed in the lower orders of life are operative in him. Some persons like Gilbert Chesterton and Bernard Shaw and some newspapers make merry with the science of Eugenics because they do not take the trouble to inform themselves. It is not free love, or trial marriage; it is not killing off weaklings, not breeding people like pigs and poultry. It has no program. It is merely the study and guidance of the agencies within human control which will improve or impair the inborn qualities of future generations. Positive eugenics seeks to promote the increase of the best stocks, negative eugenics seeks to promote the decrease of the worst stocks. With all our lately acquired knowledge, I do not think we are ready to undertake selective mating of the fittest for race improvement. Beyond question we are ready for restrictive mating to eliminate the obviously unfit. Care for the feebleminded, the insane, the epileptic, the inebriate, the congenital defective of any type, the victim of chronic contagious disease, care for them with intelligence and humanity, but deny them, in one way or another, rigorously and inexorably the opportunity of perpetuating and multiplying their kind to the inevitable deterioration of the race. (Much applause) Chairman : I know you all enjoyed that speech as much as I did. The next speaker on the program is a man whom most of you know already and he needs no introduction. Dr. Charles O'H. Laughinghouse, State Health Officer, Raleigh, will now present "The Social and Eco-
Object Description
Rating | |
Fixed Title * | NCHH-16: Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina [1891-1939] |
Document Title | Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina [1891-1939] |
Subject Topical | Medicine -- North Carolina -- Societies, etc. |
Subject Topical Other | Societies, Medical -- North Carolina. |
Description | After 1939 transactions published in the North Carolina Medical Journal |
Creator | Medical Society of the State of North Carolina. Annual Session. |
Publisher | Raleigh, N.C. : Medical Society of the State of North Carolina, 1891-1939. |
Repository | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Health Sciences Library. |
Host | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Date | 1930 |
Identifier | NCHH-16-077 |
Form General | Periodicals |
Language | English |
Rights | This item is part of the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection. Some materials in the Collection are protected by U.S. copyright law. This item is presented by the Health Sciences Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for research and educational purposes. It may not be republished or distributed without permission of the Health Sciences Library. |
Digital Collection | North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection |
Sponsor | The North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection is an open access publishing initiative of the Health Sciences Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Financial support for the initiative was provided in part by a multi-year NC ECHO (Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) digitization grant, awarded by the State Library of North Carolina, and funded through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). |
Volume Number | 77 |
Health Discipline | Medicine |
Digital Format | JPEG 2000 |
Print / Download PDF Version | http://archives.hsl.unc.edu/nchh/nchh-16/nchh-16-077.pdf |
Document Sort | all; group-d; nchh-16 |
Volume Link | http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/nchh/field/identi/searchterm/NCHH-16-077 |
Title Link | http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/nchh/field/documa/searchterm/NCHH-16 |
Catalog Record link | http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb2983307 |
Description
Fixed Title * | Page 219 |
Document Title | Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina [1891-1939] |
Subject Topical | Medicine -- North Carolina -- Societies, etc. |
Subject Topical Other | Societies, Medical -- North Carolina. |
Description | After 1939 transactions published in the North Carolina Medical Journal |
Creator | Medical Society of the State of North Carolina. Annual Session. |
Publisher | Raleigh, N.C. : Medical Society of the State of North Carolina, 1891-1939. |
Repository | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Health Sciences Library. |
Host | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Date | 1930 |
Identifier | NCHH-16-077-0253 |
Form General | Periodicals |
Page Type | all; article |
Language | English |
Rights | This item is part of the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection. Some materials in the Collection are protected by U.S. copyright law. This item is presented by the Health Sciences Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for research and educational purposes. It may not be republished or distributed without permission of the Health Sciences Library. |
Filename | transactions771930medi_0253.jp2 |
Digital Collection | North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection |
Sponsor | The North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection is an open access publishing initiative of the Health Sciences Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Financial support for the initiative was provided in part by a multi-year NC ECHO (Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) digitization grant, awarded by the State Library of North Carolina, and funded through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). |
Volume Number | 77 |
Page Number | 219 |
Health Discipline | Medicine |
Full Text | PUBLIC HEALTH AND EDUCATION 219 eracy of the race which it prophesied presented a social emergency before which no social convention could stand. And the dogs were found not to be asleep. Innocence was already violated by an underground system of education—ignorant nurses, the gossip of unclean and misinformed companions, quacks, and patent medicine venders, sex books, and personal adventures. Allow one other consideration. While the size of the American family has been declining since the eighteenth century, enough babies are now born for our increasing native population. The insistent question is, "Born, but in what homes?" The upper grades of capacity are not maintaining themselves; the lower show an amazing fertility. The graduates of Harvard have .7 of a child on the average; of Vassar .5. A feeble-minded couple has an average of seven children. At this rate, two hundred years hence a thousand Harvard graduates will have fifty descendants, but a thousand Roumanians of Boston will have one hundred thousand. Recent biological opinion appears to favor general birth control as the only effective corrective of this menacing differential birth rate. It remains to ask what is to be done for the improvement of the race. The answer is easily made, but its practical application is thronged with difficulties. It is a commonplace of practical biology today to control heredity for the improvement of the stock of animals and plants. This has been done by selective breeding. The question is whether a like care and method would work in the case of man. There is now no doubt among men who have right to an opinion on the matter that while man walks at the head of the animal procession, he belongs to it, and that the processes and laws of heredity observed in the lower orders of life are operative in him. Some persons like Gilbert Chesterton and Bernard Shaw and some newspapers make merry with the science of Eugenics because they do not take the trouble to inform themselves. It is not free love, or trial marriage; it is not killing off weaklings, not breeding people like pigs and poultry. It has no program. It is merely the study and guidance of the agencies within human control which will improve or impair the inborn qualities of future generations. Positive eugenics seeks to promote the increase of the best stocks, negative eugenics seeks to promote the decrease of the worst stocks. With all our lately acquired knowledge, I do not think we are ready to undertake selective mating of the fittest for race improvement. Beyond question we are ready for restrictive mating to eliminate the obviously unfit. Care for the feebleminded, the insane, the epileptic, the inebriate, the congenital defective of any type, the victim of chronic contagious disease, care for them with intelligence and humanity, but deny them, in one way or another, rigorously and inexorably the opportunity of perpetuating and multiplying their kind to the inevitable deterioration of the race. (Much applause) Chairman : I know you all enjoyed that speech as much as I did. The next speaker on the program is a man whom most of you know already and he needs no introduction. Dr. Charles O'H. Laughinghouse, State Health Officer, Raleigh, will now present "The Social and Eco- |
Digital Format | JPEG 2000 |
Print / Download PDF Version | http://archives.hsl.unc.edu/nchh/nchh-16/nchh-16-077.pdf |
Document Sort | all; group-d; nchh-16 |
Article Title | SECTION ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND EDUCATION |
Article Author | K. P. B . BONNER |
Volume Link | http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/nchh/field/identi/searchterm/NCHH-16-077 |
Title Link | http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/nchh/field/documa/searchterm/NCHH-16 |
Catalog Record link | http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb2983307 |
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