Sterilization for human betterment; a summary of results of 6,000 operations in California, 1909-1929, by E.S. Gosney...and Paul Popenoe. Gosney, E. S. (Ezra Seymour), 1855-1942. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1929. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106005425100 Public Domain, Google-digitized http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd-google We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address. The digital images and OCR of this work were produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially. The images are provided for educational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes. 3 2106 00542 5100 * JOJ ,NIX Uniline SANTA ALLEVIAAN The CRUZ * * CRUI The UNIVERSITY SANTA OF : LAVICK ! University CALIFORNIA LY CAUSAMA. GF SANTA The CRUZ Library UNIVERSITY. 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LIMITED LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY TORONTO A Publication of The Human Betterment Foundation STERILIZATION FOR HUMAN BETTERMENT A Summary of Results of 6 ,000 Operations in California , 1909 - 1929 BY E . S . GOSNEY, B.s., LL .B . AND PAUL POPENOE , D.Sc. NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY que 1929aceite de COMPANY COPYRIGHT , 1929 , BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY . All rights reserved , including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form . Set up and electrotyped . Published August , 1929 . PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTRODUCTION The human race has developed through count less ages under the laws of heredity by the sur vival of the fittest . The weak and defective have perished . Only the physically strong and men tally alert could withstand the severe conditions of early life , reach maturity , and become the fathers and mothers of the next generation . Modern civilization , human sympathy , and charity have intervened in Nature's plan . The weak and defective are now nursed to maturity and produce their kind. Under Nature's law we bred principally from the top. To -day we breed from the top and bot tom , but more rapidly from the bottom . To-day the most intelligent and efficient , the strongest strains of blood, as a rule , limit their children to a point that means the extinction of a family in a few generations. We need constructive charity along with our present patchwork variety that tends to increase the burdens of race degeneracy and family sui cide. [ v ] INTRODUCTION Statistics of the mentally disabled are largely , , estimates but conservatively speaking 4 % or , , , 4 800 000 of the people of the United States will at some time in their lives need the care of an institution for mental diseases because of some form of insanity . Of the feeble minded- it is esti , , , mated that 1 / 2 of 1 % or 600 000 of the people of the United States have a mentality below seven years and need constant supervision and assistance either at home or in an institution . , , , it is 1 Above this class estimated that % or 1 200 , a mentality of to 000 have from seven nine years . , , This class with a few exceptions cannot get along ; alone it must have more or less constant super vision . Above this comes the more dangerous , eugen , ically speaking moron class with its many prob lems . Los Angeles and other cities have recently made a survey of the children in the public , schools and find that in the first eight grades there are more than 4 % of children with less than three - fourths of normal intellect . If we add the , 12 of 1 % in the first class and assume that this estimate holds true for the adults , we can con , , servatively estimate that practically 5 % or 6 000 , 000 of the inhabitants of the United States have an intellectuality which is less than 75 % of that of average the man . ( vi INTRODUCTION Just how much insanity may be traced to inher itance is a difficult problem , because there is often an exciting cause , an injury , shock , or sickness . The latent heredity develops : family and friends place the blame entirely on the exciting cause . In the feeble -minded , heredity is more appar ent. Some noted families exhibit this in a striking manner , such as the Kallikak family , in which the founder had an illegitimate son by a feeble-minded woman . From this son in five generations were traced 480 offspring, only forty - six of whom were known to be normal . The same father subše , quently married a normal woman from whom in one of whom was known not to be normal . In the , first family there were all forms of feeble minded- , , ; ness degeneracy and crime in the second there , judges and a high quality of citizenship gen erally . We might mention other families such as the , ; Jukes with six generations and 1200 defectives , ; the Nam family with 90 % feeble minded- the , , Zeros tribe of Ishmael etc . each family costing its respective state from one to three million dol lars . , , Ohio some years ago published a statement , , showing that it was then expending $ 5 000 000 [ vii ] INTRODUCTION yearly in caring for defectives in its public insti tutions , and estimated that the civilized world , , , was paying $ 5 000 000 000 annually for the same purpose . This cost in money is trivial compared with the heartaches , crime , and horror that find their in origin these defectives . No sane man would wish to bring into life a child so defective that it , a sustaining- could not be self respectable citizen . be Such children should never born . They are , , a burden to themselves a burden to their family , a burden to the state and a menace to civiliza , tion . Certainly if anything can be done which is , sanctioned by common sense and good morals to prevent this accumulation of human misery , and degeneracy it should be done . What can be done ? by The prevention of reproduction castration has been practiced as far back as we find historic records . But sterilization by the simple surgical operation now practiced and herein described , without mutilation and without unsexing the , patient was discovered only in the last half cen tury . Theoretically it should have no effect indicates that it has no other effect . Nearly twenty years ago California , Indiana , and other states passed laws authorizing the sterili ( viii ] INTRODUCTION zation of the hereditary defectives in their state institutions. Most of these laws also carried a provision for sterilization as a penalty for certain crimes. The penal section has generally been held unconstitutional, as in conflict with the provision prohibiting " cruel and unusual punishments .” Eugenic sterilization of the hereditary defective is a protection , not a penalty , and should never be made a part of any penal statute . The United States Supreme Court has recently sustained the legality of eugenic sterilization . In the case of Buck vs. Bell, where a feeble-minded woman who had a feeble -minded mother and a feeble -minded child was to be sterilized against her will , Justice Holmes , in handing down the decision , said , “ Three generations of imbeciles are enough .” A score of years have passed since the first sterilization laws were adopted . Thinking people are asking , What have been the actual results of human sterilization ? Here in California is the one place where these results have been clearly ascertained . No fewer than 6 , 255 sterilizations had been performed prior to January 1, 1929 , in the institutions of this state - practically three times as many official sterilizations as had been per formed in all the rest of the United States. We have traced the records and results of these ster , ilizations as far as possible and have published [ ix ] INTRODUCTION them in full in a series of technical papers in vari ous scientific journals, so that any one who is inter ested in going to the original data can find these data , presented in a critical fashion .