Eugenics and Euthenics

Eugenics and Euthenics j. H. KELLOGG, M. D. Reprinted from GOOD HEALTH MAGAZINE BA TILE CREEK, MICH. August. 1921 ..,_...,.. __ Eugenics and Euthenics ' [A paper read before the Eugenics Club of Chicago, .May 20, 1921, by Dr. J. H. Kellogg.] . UGENICS is the science of race hy in the germ plasm, as shown by their E . giene. Euthenics is the science of appearance in the progeny in accordance personal hygiene. The eugenists have with Mendel's law. heretofore insisted that there is little or The establishment of this fact puts no direct relation between the two. They upon each generation the responsibility have told us that race hygiene pertains not only of preserving intact the precious only to the germ plasm, while personal acquirements accumulated by the race hygiene concerns itself . wholly with the during its long upward climb through soma, which is merely a vehicle for the countless ages of struggle with its en immortal germ plasm which carries on vironment, but of making contributions from generation to generation the deter to further advancement through achieve miners of the racial stock, preserving in ment and worth-while acquirement. tact their original characters irrespec That the human race is tending' down tive of the vicissitudes and injuries to ward, no thoughtful and informed per which the diseased and dying body which son now disputes. For the last' twenty houses it may be subjected. For more five years, the evidence that the human than thirty years I have combated this race is degenerating has steadily accumu doctrine as untenable in the light of prac lated, until such a mass of pertinent facts tical human experience. Weismann has been gathered by scientific observers claimed to have proved that acquired in various parts of the world that there characters are not transmitted to off is no longer room for doubt that we are spring by heredity. He cut off the tails going down hill at a rapid rate. Some of many successive generations of rats years ago, Tredgold, the eminent English and the last generation grew as long tails authority, referring to the evidence of as the first. The great biologist over race degeneration, remarked: looked the fact that the tailless state of "It is impossible to avoid the conclu his mutilated rats was not acquired by sion that at present England contains an them, but was forced upon them. If the increasing number of people who are fail tails had disappeared by lack of use, as ing to adapt themselves to the exigencies the eyes of the fish of the Mammoth Cave of -the times, who are not keeping pace of Kentucky have done, the condition with the increasing demands which civil would have been acquired and would have ization entails, and who are deficient in been inheritable. I hope to be able in the capacity to carry on the progress of this paper to establish a definite and im the nation and of the race. It seems prob portant relation between eugenics and able, in view of the history of nations euthenics by presenting established facts in the past, that much of the present which prove that somatic characters re social and industrial unrest and of the sulting from changes in the environment movements toward communism is also of an organism, such as modifications of an expression of the same increasing food or temperature and exposure to the physical and mental incapacity, and of a action of bacteria and various poisons, waning spirit of grit and independence. m:ay become permanent, through changes "Life on• this planet is so constituted 3 that it can only progress by the survival citizen was barely above the level of im and propagation of the biologically fit and becility; while Davenport startled us some the elimination of the unfit. In the course years ago by the assertion that mental of man's evolution a stage has been defectives constitute one per cent of the reached at which this process has been re population of the United States. versed, with the result that the race mere For many years the writer has been ly marks time, while successive nations calling attention to these and other facts ebb to and fro in a ceaseless rise and fall. as evidences that the human race is de ! ·believe that this is but a phase, and that generating; and that while modern intelli the time will certainly come when the an gence, aided by our vast accumulations tidote of eugenics will be applied, and man of knowledge, is able to accomplish now will continue his progress; and I have no and then a brilliant achievement, the act hesitation in saying that the nation which ual average intelligence of the race is first grasps and applies this principle will sinking, just as vital stamina is lowering, thereby secure such an advantage in in notwithstanding the increase in average creased efficiency that it will rapidly be longevity. come the predominant power." The application of intelligence tests to For long we have prided ourselves that t'ens of thousands of young men in the in this twentieth century, which com war examinations (1,600,000) shows not pletes the sixth millennium of recognized only that the statements of Carlyle, Gal historic time, we have attained the very ton and Davenport were true, but that summit of human intelligence. We over the facts are even worse than they made look the wide difference between intelli them out to be. The psychologists de gence and knowledge. Knowledge is sim scribe three classes of congenital defect ply the accumulated products of intelli ives,-idiots, imbeciles and morons. The gence. Intelligence is the power to dis idiot has less intelligence or sense than cover or create knowledge. The world's a child of three years; an imbecile has great store of knowledge of which we the mental equipment of a child ot three boast is the accumulated wealth of the to eight years; while an adult having only age-long experience of the human species. the intelligence of a child of eight to The seed thoughts of our greatest mod eleven years is a moron. Grown-ups hav ern discoveries were planted long ago, ing only the intelligence of a child of perhaps ages in the past, and after germi eleven to thirteen years might well fall nating through immeasurable periods of into Carlyle's class of fools. human experience, have come to bloom Now, what did the army tests demon and fruitage in these modern days. The strate? A careful analysis of a hundred really great discoveries were made so far thousand of these tests shows that the back in the distant past that we cannot average intelligence of the young men of even guess by whom or how they were the country between the ages of twen made. It required, indeed, a vastly great ty-one and thirty-one years, including er amount of intelligence to make the college students, teachers, bankers, law first wagon, the first sailboat, the first yers-men of all classes, but excluding algebraic formula, the first geometrical the obviously defective, the insane, im theorem, to formulate the first syllogism, beciles and idiots-is only equal to that than to make the greatest of our modern of a normal child of thirteen years. It is so-called discoveries. evident that if the minority possessing Carlyle once said that the population of superior intelligence were taken out of England · were "mostly fools," and Galton the group, the great mass left, probably declared that intelligence of the average more than three-fourths of . the whole, 4 would fall much below the intelligence were capable of being trained for full of a normal child of thirteen. In other military duty. words, Carlyle was literally right. Not So long ago as 1904, according to Max only the population of England but that Gruber, President of the Royal Hygienic of the United States and of all other civil Institute of Munich, 40 per cent of the ized countries is made up of "mostly young men of Gerniany. were unfit for fools." military service, and a _large per cent of Equally startling is the observation that German young women were unable to 2.6 per cent of the entire mass show a nurse their children. Life expectancy for degree of intelligence less than that of the new-born boy in Germany was then a normal child of ten years. In other but 42 years, and for the girl, 46 years. words, one in thirty-nine of the men ex In every civilized land, it is remarked amined were found to be morons, or just that very few representatives of old city a grade above imbe~ility. families . are to be found. In Germany, When we take into consideration the ~ll but 5 per cent of noted families living fact that those obviously defective ment five or six hundred years ago are now ally were excluded before these tests extinct. In England, only three of the were applied, it is evident that the propor ducal families of the time of Charles II have tion of mental defectives in the United living representatives. The few which States-that is, those whose minds are remain owe their existence to the infu definitely below the level of ordinary sion of new blood from the rural districts: intelligence-is without doubt consider City life is fatal to the longevity of fami ably greater than three per cent, which lies as well as of individuals. shows the situation as regards our na We are obliged to admit that notwith tional intelligence to be three times as standing the increase in the average bad as Dr.

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