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NOVEMBER 27, 1926.

THE

Lloyd Roberts Memorial LectureON

RACIAL DEGENERATION.Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of

London on Nov. 19th, 1926,BY THE VERY REV. W. R. INGE, C.V.O., D.D.,

DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S.

THIS is the second time in one year that I havebeen honoured by being appointed to give a lectureto the medical profession and their friends. I haveaccepted, because those who invited me must knowmy limitations, and will not expect from me what Iam obviously incompetent to give. In my Fisonlecture at Guy’s, a few months ago, I spoke of thephilosophy of science, of the relation of philosophy,particularly the philosophy of religion, to science.Though my treatment of the subject was necessarilycursory, I could not give a second address on thesame topic, especially as my lecture has been pub- i

lished ; and so I have decided to take as my subject ’,to-day one aspect of a branch of science in which I ihave been keenly interested for many years, ever ’since, as a near neighbour of Sir Francis Galton in iRutland Gate, I learned from that fine old man tofeel some of his own enthusiasm about the possibleimprovement of the human stock. For me it has, of Icourse, been a hobby rather than a rigorous study,and I should not dream of supposing that any utter-ances of mine on these abstruse and difficult studiescan have any value as contributions to knowledge.They will deal rather with the borderland betweenstrict science and practical social hygiene. Politicsought to be a branch of social hygiene, though atpresent social hygiene is hardly even a branch ofpolitics. Salus populi suprema lex, as the proverbsays ; and we may give salus its commonest meaning Iof bodily and mental health. Sanitas sanitatum, ’,ontnia sanitas, is Disraeli’s parody of Ecclesiastes.The subject of racial decadence is one of supremepublic interest; and though I wish I were betterequipped with technical knowledge, I hope I may beable to state the problem in such a way as to interestsome of you.

NEGATIVE EUGENICS.I have taken the negative side of eugenics rather

than the positive, racial degeneration rather thanrace improvement, not because I have any naturaltendency to dwell on the dark side of the changeswhich are always going on in the human race, butbecause at present negative eugenics is far moreimportant than positive. We have to considerwhether we can counteract the dysgenic effects of ahighly artificial civilisation. Natural selection, in ahumane and highly civilised country like our own,has almost ceased to operate ; if we do not providesome rational substitute for it, Nature will punish usfor interfering with her methods of social hygienewithout providing anything to take their place.But I hope to give some striking examples of theinheritance of good as well as of bad characteristics.

" To understand what has happened, and evenwhat will happen," said Buffon, " it is only necessaryto examine what is happening." But when ce quiarrive is what we want to know, that which hashappened is our best guide. All science is based onthe belief that in natural laws " there is neithervariableness nor shadow of turning." This does notexclude what Bergson calls creative evolution, LloydMorgan " emergent evolution," and chemists creativesynthesis, though in this process there is an unexplainedmystery. Biological progress means increasing com-plexity of structure and function, increasing specialisa-tion and cooperation of parts ; and what we callhuman nrosTess is no more than this. Snecia,lisation

always means limitation in some directions. Wecannot have both wings and arms (until we becomeangels) ; if our limbs are good for running we cannotswim like a fish. Highly differentiated organismsare fit only for certain conditions ; when these arechanged the organism must perish or return to a lessdifferentiated type. It is only the least differentiatedorganisms, like the germ-cells, which are potentiallyimmortal.

So there are different paths which evolution maytake. In our species we may say that there have beenthree stages-greater complexity of bodily structure,greater intelligence, and greater social organisation ;and it is broadly true that when a new stage begins,the earlier stage becomes less active. If we judgefrom other living organisms on the earth, stabilityseems to be the rule, change the exception ; thoughDe Vries thinks that periods of mutation and ofstability alternate with each other. It is probablethat the four ice-ages, divided by long inter-glacialperiods, have had a great deal to do with the evolu-tion of humanity. Perhaps Nature has expendednearly all her ingenuity ; there have been no newclasses since the appearance of mammals and birdsin very early times.Even social evolution seems to have come to an

end with the bees and ants. State-socialism can nofurther go than in these suffragette utopias, governedand run by maiden aunts. These societies are anawful warning; perfect cooperation has sacrificedthe individual completely. Fortunately, there are

physiological limits to specialisation ; men consist-ing almost entirely of swelled heads, like H. G. Wells’s" Grand Lunar," could not live.Man has been a distinct species for probably more

than a million years, but anything like civilisation isa matter of the last ten thousand years or so. Thisis a very short time for him to adapt himself torevolutionary changes in his habits ; we need notwonder that what Metchnikoff calls maladaptationsor disharmonies, bodily as well as mental, exist toplague us in our health and conduct. I suppose thatpathology is mainly concerned with such disharmonies ;it is instructive to observe how very small a partdisease plays in the lives of wild animals, which arecompletely adjusted to their environment.

It is sometimes said that evolution is rapid tostart with, when some clirriatic or other change setsit going, and that it then slows down till it stops.But it seems doubtful whether physical changes arenot now going on in our bodily structure as rapidlyas ever ; only unfortunately they seem to be mainlydegenerative. H. F. Osborn enumerates the decreas-ing size of the little toe, increase in the size of thegreat toe ; decrease in the size and strength of theteeth, and probably a gradual lowering of theperfection of the sense-organs. Dentists, I believe,agree that our jaws are becoming too small for ourteeth ; the sharp and narrow nose of the northernEuropean may be a new feature, with some value asa protection against respiratory diseases ; baldnessin middle life is perhaps increasing ; and somethingseems to be happening to that now useless organ theappendix. I believe additions might be made tothis list. As regards the organs of sense, I cannothelp thinking that our eyesight has deterioratedrapidly. Very few middle-aged men can read a

closely written or printed mediaeval book withoutglasses ; though the ancient Greeks, a singularlylong-lived race, went on reading and writing tillextreme old age without mechanical aid.Any physical changes other than degenerative are

inhibited by the use of tools and other inventions.Digestion as well as mastication is made too easy ;having clothes and weapons we need neither fur norclaws. And, as I shall show, nearly all the aptitudeswhich distinguish the handyman from the simpletonare now becoming superfluous. We may some dayhave a generation who can neither walk nor write;they will rely on the cycle or car for the first, andon the typewriter for the second. " You press thebutton ; we do the rest." Nature will say, " Very

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well, I will leave you just enough intelligence to pressthe button."

HAS HUMAN INTELLIGENCE ADVANCED ?It seems very doubtful whether human intelligence

has advanced in the last five thousand years. Lookat the Egyptians 3000 years before Christ.

" Already,"says Austin Freeman,

" he is living in large and well-ordered communities with all the machinery of acomplex civilisation. He has an established govern-ment, a system of jurisprudence, a complex religion,and a wealth of myths and traditions. Thoughunacquainted with iron, he is an expert metallurgist asto the less refractory metals, with the aid of which heworks-and works magnificently-granite, porphyry,syenite, and other of the hardest stones. Not onlycan he smelt metal, he can work it in everyway ; draw it into wire, beat it into sheets, cast it,emboss, chase, engrave, and even inlay and enamelit. He has invented the lathe and the potter’s wheel,and can make, glaze, and enamel beautiful earthen-ware. He is an expert woodworker, joiner, andcarver. He is an admirable sculptor, draughtsman,and painter. He has developed a great architecturalstyle, and his stone buildings are not only the greatestin size ever erected, but are of unsurpassed excellenceof workmanship. He is a builder of sea-going shipsof considerable burthen and is a capable coastwisenavigator. He has invented the loom, and producestextiles of fine quality. He has a rich language, andhas devised a system of written characters, thehandsomest ever produced, with a convenient andpractical cursive script. He makes excellent paper,and has an extensive, dignified, and beautiful litera-ture. He has numerous musical instruments, includ-ing the harp, lute, viol, drum, sistrum, cithern,dulcimer, flute, recorder, trumpet. He has estab-lished something approaching a metal currency ; hasa number of weapons-sword, spear, bow and arrow,sling, boomerang ; and has invented most of thehand-tools now in use. He has domesticated theox, sheep, goat, horse, camel, dog, cat, pig, andvarious birds, and is an expert agriculturist. Hemakes furniture of unsurpassed excellence of designand workmanship, and can cut and polish preciousstones and set them in beautiful jewellery-in short,he is already acquainted with the essentials of all thearts and crafts, and in many of them he -s to this dayunexcelled if not unequalled."

I will not go so far as Sir Francis Galton in estimat-ing the comparative intelligence of the ancientAthenian and the modern European ; but there canbe little doubt that the Greek was our superior. Allthe great religions, and I think all the great philo-sophies too, were born in the thousand or twelvehundred years before the death of Mohammed.

Civilisation is mainly the result of accumulatedknowledge and experience. Each generation standson the shoulders of the last, and has the chance ofclimbing higher from that point. Most of our acquisi-tions are in the custody of a very few persons. Someof them are trade secrets ; others can only be masteredby many years of application. This explains howcivilisations occasionally die ; it is also an argumentfor a widely diffused education. A great convulsion,like the breach of the dykes which protected theGraeco-Roman world from the barbarians of thenorth and east, may break the tradition, and causethe total loss of the higher arts and sciences. It iswell known that at the Renaissance it was necessaryto go back to the fragments which had survived fromclassical antiquity. In medicine, for example, Celsusand Galen were far in advance of the superstitiousand ignorant practice of the Dark Ages. It is un-

likely, but not inconceivable, that such a disastermay occur again. In Russia the nation has beenalmost literally decapitated. When that nationrecovers a civilised government, it will have to go toGermany and other countries for the arts and scienceswhich have been almost extinguished at home. Aworld-wide revolution of the same kind, such as

might follow another great war, would be the end of

our civilisation, and the beginning of a new Dark Agewhich might last for centuries. It might then hefound that the present population of the world isless inventive and alert in intelligence than, forexample, the Europeans of the Renaissance.Analogy suggests that where the weight of sustain-

ing civilisation is thrown upon tradition, otherfaculties, by which man slowly raised himself fromsavagery, are likely to become partially atrophied.Whether such atrophy can be inherited is, of course,a vexed question among biologists into which I, asan outsider, shall be wise not to enter. The problemis mainly about the manner of the changes conditionedby environment, for there is no doubt that a whalehas lost its hind legs by living in the water. (Miltongives the whale gills and a trunk, but he was a poet.)But it cannot be disputed that those qualities whichwere once essential to progress have no longer thesame survival value under civilisations of the moderntype. An American eugenist, Holmes of California,sums up the differences between barbarism andcivilisation as follows. Among primitive races,natural selection operates actively. Nomads are

obliged to leave diseased and feeble members of thetribe behind on their long marches. Superstitiousfear causes deformed children to be destroyed.Sexual selection frequently works for race improve-ment. The African chief, who monopolises half thewomen of the tribe and is the father of his people inthe most literal sense, is usually a man of giganticstature and strength, and of great vigour of character.Among the Chippewa Indians any one may challengeanother to wrestle, and if he wins may carry off hiswife as a prize. Savage war tends to an increase ofthe best stock, since the better fighter kills the worse.This I think is somewhat doubtful. " He who fightsand runs away may live to fight another day." Onthe other hand, among civilised races, natural selec-tion is reduced in some cases, and probably increasedin others. In the upper and middle classes marriageis not universal, and though many of the best menand women unfortunately die childless, there is a

certain selection against men who cannot make goodas salary-earners, and against women who are notlikely to make satisfactory mothers. But mean-while, the State, and private charity, keep alivemultitudes who by their misfortune or fault are life-long parasites on the community, and who in manycases are suffering from heritable defects. This

dysgenic selection affects a much larger number thanthe slightly eugenic selection among the well-to-do.Civilised war, says Holmes, eliminates the best.7MMe/’ der Krieg versehlingt die Besten. This is true,in so far as the unfit are not called to the colours.Such evidence as is available goes to show that con-siderable injury has been done to the European racialstocks by the Great War. Lastly, in place of thegreater fecundity of the barbarian chiefs, the sociallysuccessful in civilised countries do not keep up theirnumbers. Against this it may be said that Plutus isblind, and does not always enrich the best, and thatthe children and grandchildren of the nouveau richeare not always better specimens of humanity thantheir poorer neighbours. But on the whole there isno doubt at all that industrial civilisation under ademocracy skims off the cream in each generationand then throws much of it away.The bees and ants have proceeded by extreme

differentiation of function. The group -has super-seded the individual. Is this a desirable ideal forhumanity ? In some societies a highly cultivatedminority has flourished and produced achievementswhich are the wonder of posterity, but the remainderof the population has remained quite uncivilised anduncared for. There have been biologists who acceptthis type of state as the best. Herbert Spencerthought that the " beneficent working of the survivalof the fittest " must condemn the unsuccessful to" abject misery " and death. " An opposite regimewould be fatal to the species." Haeckel says : " Thetheory of selection teaches us in human life exactlyas in animal and plant life. that at each space and

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time only a small privileged minority can continueto exist and flourish ; the great mass must starveand more or less prematurely perish in misery. Wemay mourn this tragic fact, but we cannot deny oralter it. Many are called but few are chosen. Thisselection, this picking out of the chosen, is neces-sarily combined with the languishing and perishingof the remaining majority." Benjamin Kidd thinksthat cut-throat competition " results from deep-seated physiological causes, the operation of whichwe must always remain powerless to escape." Headds that it is the lofty function of religion to furnishnon-rational sanctions for conduct which make forsocial as opposed to individual welfare.These sentiments are not likely to commend either

biology or religion to those who used to be called thesuffering and toiling masses. They represent a pathwhich a nation might take, but, as I believe, to itsown undoing. There are several fatal objections toit. Unlimited competition exhausts the competitors,physically and mentally, and in practice, whethervoluntarily or involuntarily, it sterilises them. Sosevere is competition in America that 1,750,000 policy-holders of an insurance company (industrial depart-ment) give an average life of 46 years to males and52 to females. Further, they will either destroy eachother or cease to compete. In all the higher humanactivities competition is not the chief motive force,and in a nation organised solely for big business thesehigher activities languish. They are squeezed out, aswe see in some sections of American society. Themillionaire is not the supreme product of humanprogress. Again, as the result of our industrialregime, there has come about a correlation betweenfailure and fecundity which is an odd comment onHerbert Spencer’s beneficent law of the survival ofthe fittest. Lastly, the most important unit in groupcompetition is the nation, and a nation organised onHaeckel’s lines would go to pieces under the firstsevere strain, as Russia did in the Great War. Or ifa privileged military caste made conquests, Nature’slaw is that the ruling race rules itself out. In WesternEurope there are no more wolves ; but the sheephold their own. In short, I do not think that thosewho wish to keep the masses in a servile state (ifthere are any such left) can appeal successfully tobiology in support of their views. A society withwell-marked castes may be very successful, partlybecause, while encouraging good traditions of skill andrequiring a considerable amount of specialisation, itmitigates competition ; but not if it includes anignorant and wretched proletariat. No scheme ofsocial hygiene can be satisfactory that does notinclude the whole population. The plan of develop-ing to the utmost a small selected class has beentried several times, but it is not proved that equallygood results might not have been obtained by othermethods involving less injustice.

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT.We have now to consider whether civilisation is

working towards a degeneration of the national stock.We may ask first whether neglect of the known lawsof heredity is producing this effect, and, secondly,whether our social arrangements are encouraging thetendency to parasitism, which is always ready toshow itself where circumstances are favourable to it.We shall have to consider not only the parasitism ofpersons or classes on the community, but the newdanger that human beings may become parasitic onthe machines which they have made for their ownuse. This last is a source of racial decay which hasonly lately attracted attention. It is obviously aproblem which belongs to the human race alone,since man is the only tool-maker.

It will be generally admitted that our social sciencehas been too exclusivelv environmental. It is notnecessary to minimise what can be done by externalmeans, such as education, sanitation, and increasedopportunities for leading a healthy life. Sometimesdiseases which were supposed to be hereditary canbe eliminated by scientific treatment, as the Swiss

valleys have been almost freed from goitre, whichwas already prevalent there in the time of Juvenal,since that disease has been proved to be due to theabsence of iodine; and the supposed congenitalinferiority of the inhabitants of subtropical regionsin America has been proved to be due to the parasitecalled the hookworm. It used to be supposed thatEuropeans were constitutionally unable to keep theirhealth in a tropical climate. But it now seems thatin the absence of tropical diseases, such as malariaand yellow fever, which are being brought undercontrol by war against the parasites which cause

them, even northern Europeans can live healthily inclimates as hot as North Queensland. Still, when allhas been said in favour of concentrating attention onthe environment, the best authorities are unanimousthat Nature is far more important than nurture.Prof. Punnett, for example, says that " permanentprogress is a question of breeding rather than ofpedagogics ; a matter of gametes not of training.As our knowledge of heredity clears and the mists ofsuperstition are dispelled, there grows upon us withan ever-increasing and relentless force the convictionthat the creature is not made but born." It is surelysignificant that these judgments, which go beyondwhat the observation of life suggests to those whoare not specialists in genetics, are maintained so

strongly by those who have given their lives to thisparticular study. There is not much difference, Ithink, here between the Mendelians and the bio-metricians, who sometimes show a certain acerbityin criticising each other. Prof. Karl Pearson, themost prominent authority on the statistical study ofgenetics, comes to the conclusion that if we comparethe relative importance of Nature and nurture indetermining bodily and mental character, it is foundthat Nature is at least five times, and perhaps eventen times, more decisive than nurture.

It is true that the transmission of characters isnow seen to be far more complex than was oncesupposed. It is usual now to speak of unit-factors,not of unit-characters. A character, such as markedability in any direction, is probably due to the com-bination of several unit-factors, the absence of oneof which may spoil the result. No one would claimthat much is yet known for certain about the actionof " genes " and the laws of their combined action.I could not think of offering any opinion on so abstrusea subject. But we may still learn much by collectingfamily histories, and observing what qualities tendto reappear in the second and succeeding generations,without even attempting to theorise on the causes oftheir transmission.

Pedigrees of able families are abundant, ever sinceGalton inaugurated this method of approach. Ithink, if I may venture on an opinion, that Galtonhardly allowed sufficiently for the good start whichthe son of an able man has, the stimulating influenceof the home circle in which he is brought up, theambition of following in his father’s footsteps, theopportunities of a good education which his father’ssuccess affords him, and in some professions, such aspolitics, the openings which the son of a CabinetMinister may expect for entering public life, at anage when the member of a politically unknownfamily is still struggling on the lower rungs of theladder. We shall also find, if we read the literatureof the subject, that a small number of striking pedi-grees, such as those of the Bachs, a family of ablemusicians, and of the Darwins in our own country,are repeated in almost every volume. We need amuch larger number of pedigrees, including not onlythe five-talent but the two-talent men. There are.however, some characters, such as stature andlongevity, in which adventitious advantages countfor little. The inheritance of such characters isprobably more instructive when we are investigatingthe incidence of heredity than the history of familiesof great distinction. There is much material of thiskind in the valuable but unfortunately very expensiveperiodical, Biometr,i7,-,a. Davenport gives some strikingexamples of the inheritance of stature and longevity,

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which indeed we must have all observed. Insurancecompanies, it is well known, ask particularly aboutthe ages at which the applicant’s four grandparentsdied. In one American family mentioned by Daven-port, the father died at 91, the mother at 82. Therewere 17 children, of whom the shortest lived diedat, 67. The inheritance of high stature cannot haveescaped our notice. It would be quite easy to breeda family with an average height of over six feet byselected matings.

Mendel’s discoveries have perhaps affected Galton’slaw of " reversion to the mean." Such reversionusually takes place, but if matings were selected witha view to preserving some particular character, I seeno reason why it should not be firmly established.There is no tendency to breed out a degenerativevariation which has once appeared, unless it kills offits victims.

HEREDITARY ABILITY.Are some kinds of ability more strongly inherited

than others ? I believe myself that no kind of abilityis more strongly inherited than that which leads toacademic distinction in " humane letters," but thatmathematical talent is comparatively sporadic. Inclassical scholarship the record of such families asButler, Kennedy, Sidgwick is very remarkable. Igave in one of my books the history of my ownmother’s family, the Churtons. The first scholar ofthe family, my great-grandfather, was something ofa freak, since his father was one of the old yeomanfarmers, cultivating his own land. But as usual, forbetter or worse, the freak was persistent. In fourgenerations no male of the family who lived to growup failed to win more or less distinction as a scholaror theologian or both. There are 13 names in the list.Such records give point to the question of St. Paul," What hast thou that thou didst not receive ? Butif thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as ifthou hadst not received it ? " It would be a greatcomfort if we could apply the same argument to ourfaults. There are some professional families muchmore distinguished than mine, such as the Words-worths, Selwyns, and Pollocks, whose history wouldbe well worth tracing in detail. In fact, I believethat if, say, a thousand professional families woulddraw up records of this kind, it would have a realscientific value. I have suggested to the EugenicsSociety that they might announce their willingness Ito receive family histories.A very important question, especially as bearing

on the subject of this lecture, is whether the profes-sional classes have really a much higher average ofinnate ability than what, without meaning anyoffence, we may still call the lower middle and lowersocial strata. Political prejudices ought not to beallowed to interfere with a purely scientific question.The best discussion of the subject that I know ofis in McDougall’s " National Welfare and Decay."McDougall, who is now professor of psychology atHarvard, has a reputation second to none as an

authority on social psychology. He considers thatfor the British people at the present time the topicof racial deterioration " overshadows and dwarfsevery other that any man of science could proposefor its consideration." " Both these great nations "(Britain and America) " are threatened by an insi-dious danger which, if we cannot learn to cope withit, will bring our brightest hopes to nothingness, andrender our ideals merely the fleeting visions of agolden age which is past." The Great War hastaught us that civilisation and culture do not neces-sarily sap the energies of man ; this is a most reassur-ing discovery. Our future is in our own hands tomake or mar. History seems to show that in the riseand fall of peoples economic factors are of secondaryimportance ; no advantages will save a people fromdecay when it loses its natural superiority. Nationsdo not grow old like individuals ; that is a falseanalogy ; but they do die of disease, when the burdenof civilisation becomes too heavy for the shoulderswhich have to bear it. This is why the present

’ situation is so serious. The higher races and classes; are using the resources of scientific knowledge toi reduce the death-rate of the inferior and the birth-. rate of the superior. In the United States a com-’ petent investigator says, " All available data com-

bine to prove that the Anglo-American population’ has not merely attained its maximum, but has begun

to decline." Prof. Karl Pearson, whom no one willaccuse of being a Tory, says :-The upper middle classes are the result of a severe selection

. of capacity, and later, of intermarrying, under conditionswhich seem no longer possible.... It is the realisation ofthese points, that not all, but the bulk of the abler and morecapable stocks have drifted into the upper middle class, and

that ability is inherited, which makes, in my opinion, thedecreasing relative fertility of these classes a matter of the

most serious national importance.This was written as early as 1905. In view of the

financial burdens heaped upon the professional classsince the war, it is certain that the situation hasbecome very much worse. If you will take the troubleto open " Who’s Who " at random, and count thenumber of children in 50 or 100 consecutive entries,

, you will find that they are slightly less than two toeach entry ; so that these families of moderatelysuccessful men are not keeping up their numbers.But have we any direct evidence that the children

of the upper middle class are better endowed bynature than the other strata which, as we have seen,are crowding them out of existence ? I will give twoquotations from McDougall’s book :-

" Some years before the war, one of my pupils at Oxfordmade a direct attack upon the problem, and the results aresignificant, though on a small scale. At Oxford are gatheredas teachers many men from the whole British Empire, highlyselected in virtue of intellectual distinction. Now it so

happens that in a certain private school in Oxford a majorityof the boys are sons of these men. We therefore set out tocompare the intellectual capacity of the boys of this schoolwith that of boys of a primary school. This primary schoolwas an exceptionally good school of its kind, the teachingbeing in many respects better than in the other, the privateschool; the boys were from good homes, sons of good plaincitizens-shopkeepers, skilled artisans, and so forth-andthere was no question of their development having beenretarded by physical privations. Without going into detail,I may say summarily that the result was to show a verymarked superiority in the boys of the school frequented bythe intellectual class. The result is all the more striking ifyou reflect on the following facts : first, every boy has twoparents and inherits his qualities from both. Secondly, ithas not been shown that university dons prefer clever wives,or that they are particularly clever in choosing clever wives.It is highly probable that if the wives were all as clever astheir husbands, the superiority of their sons would have beeneven more marked."

My other quotation concerns America." Mr. A. W. Kornhauser examined 1000 children, drawn

from five schools of the city of Pittsburgh. Of these schools,A and B were attended chiefly by the children of the poorerclasses, largely unskilled manual workers; C and D bychildren of a more prosperous class, largely skilled artisansand small shopkeepers ; E by children of parents in verycomfortable circumstances. He found that the groups fromA and B show a very large proportion of retarded, with analmost negligible number of advanced ; C and D have themost nearly normal proportion of retarded and advanced ;the E group shows a very small proportion of retarded, witha comparatively large percentage of advanced pupils. Ifthe several schools had had the same standard of grading,the superiority of intelligence in the children of E over theothers would be revealed even more strikingly. The figuresare-in A, retarded 45-2 per cent., normal 47-1 per cent.,advanced 7-7 per cent. In E 12’7 per cent. retarded, 62-7per cent. normal, 24-6 per cent. advanced J

McDougall considers it proved that " the socialstratification which exists in modern industrialcommunities is positively correlated with a corre-

sponding stratification of moral and intellectualquality, or in less technical language, the upper socialstrata as compared with the lower contain a largerproportion of persons of superior natural endowments."He goes on :-" Forms of organisation matter little, the all-important

thing is the quality of the matter to be organised, the qualityof the human beings that are the stuff of our nations and

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societies.... Civilisations decay because they die off at thetop, because they cease to produce in sufficient numbers,men and women of the moral and intellectual calibre neededfor their support.... The number of such persons is becomingabsolutely fewer with each generation the evidence isoverwhelming."

I should not myself be quite so dogmatic as thislast sentence ; the question is too difficult to answerconfidently. But several modern tendencies are

actively dysgenic. The relative sterility of the

professional class is a new thing. The sharp declinein the infant mortality of the slums is a new thing ;the educational system whereby in each generationthe cream of working-class ability is skimmed off anddrafted into the infertile black-coat professions, isnew ; the feminist movement, which according tosome is the most dangerous of all, by making themost intellectual women disinclined to marriage andmotherhood, is new. The extent of the evil may beand has been very variously estimated ; but beyondall question the classes which are the best endowedintellectually (and, in this country, the best endowedphysically as well) are passing into a relative andeven an absolute decline. At Oxford, McDougallfound that 142 dons had 261 children-284 parents,261 children. Taking the country as a whole, thoughthe figures are somewhat contradictory, the lowestbirth-rates seem to be those of the medical profession,the teachers, and ministers of religion. My presentaudience will probably agree that no more desirableparents of the next generation can be found than themembers of these three professions. It may alsosuggest food for reflection that these three professionsare the chief denouncers of birth control. We haveseen what our leading authorities on Mendelism andBiometrics think of the immense importance ofpreserving the best stocks and repressing the increaseof the worst. There is therefore grave reason forapprehension at the course which our civilisation istaking.

Before leaving the subject of good heredity, andpassing to the darker side of my theme, I should liketo call your attention to one of the most remarkableexamples of the way in which a country may bepermanently enriched by a very small accession ofpicked immigrants. To judge from the claims ofsome prosperous Americans, one might suppose thatthe Mayflower was as large as the Olympic. In pointof fact, it was a very small vessel, and the mortalityamong the Pilgrim Fathers was so great that only33 of them founded families. Nearly half the greatmen of America are the authentic descendants ofthese 33 men. Here is the list, as furnished to thelast Congress of Eugenics :-John Adams, President ; John Quincey Adams, President ;

C. F. Adams, Ambassador to Great Britain ; H. Dearborn,Secretary for War ; Garfield, President; Ulysses Grant,President; L. P. Morton, Vice-President; Elihu Root,Secretary of State ; A. Taft, Attorney General ; W. H.Taft, President; Zachary Taylor, President; E. B.Washburn, Secretary of State ; Daniel Webster, Secretary ofState ; L. Wood, Governor of Cuba and the Philippines ;Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Chancellor of England ; M. W. Fuller,Judge of the Supreme Court; W. C. Bryant, Poet ; W.Churchill, Novelist; R. W. Emerson, Philosopher ; H. W.Longfellow, Poet; with many other names less well knownon this side.

IMPAIRMENT OF THE NATIONAL STOCK.I now come to the injury which is being done to

the national stock by the unchecked propagation ofinherently bad stocks. A combination of socialismin distribution with laissez faire in procreation is apolicy only fit for Bedlam. The importance of pre-natal infection is often exaggerated, partly for moralreasons. I once asked Sir Conan Doyle whether as adoctor he could justify the plot of his lurid story," Unto the Fourth Generation," and he admittedthat he could not. It seems very doubtful, in spiteof the researches of my friend Dr. Mjoen, of Norway,whether alcohol injures the germ-plasm. Sir ArchdallReid even suggests that after a century or two ofprohibition a nation would be in an admirable state

for general alcohol poisoning ; the effects of immuni-sation would by that time have worn off. The dangerto the stock comes from those diseases which whenthey have once appeared in a family, Mendelise, andare never bred out of it, though the curious law of" antedating," which seems to be established in somecases, looks like an attempt of nature to cut off thetainted entail.

I will take first the case of mental defect. Thefeeble-minded are about 50 per cent. more prolificthan the normal. The researches of Tredgold aredecisive on this point. Where two feeble-mindedpersons marry, the children are all tainted. Pedigreesmay be found in Tredgold, Whetham, Davenport,and many other writers. In one family tree, plantedby two defectives, there are 14 names, none of themnormal. Holmes says :-

" Out of 482 children recorded by Goddard as arising fromunions between two feeble-minded persons, 477 were knownto be defective.... In 41 such matings of the Eallikak ’family, there were 222 feeble-minded and only 2 normal."

Where one parent is epileptic and the other feeble-minded, Davenport and Weeks found that in 15matings, 28 out of 55 children were epileptic, 26 feeble-minded, and 1 insane.

Insanity is, of course, a word which covers manydiseases, and I am not suggesting that all insanity isdegenerative. But it is ominous that-

" in 13 years before 1903 the insane in institutions in theUnited States increased 100 per cent., and that since 1859in England and Wales the insane have increased 230 percent." (Holmes).

These figures do not include the mentally deficient,who have multiplied as we should expect.

It is not generally known that though the death-rate has declined rapidly and steadily till it must havealmost touched bottom, the saving has been entirelyin the earlier periods of life. The expectation of lifeat 60 is, I believe, no higher than it was 70 years ago.Some microbes seem to be in process of establishinga modus vivendi instead of a modus moriendi withtheir hosts, but cancer begins after 45 to levy a cruettoll upon both sexes, and now nearly equally, thoughit was formerly more fatal to women in the proportionof 5 to 2.Some of the most striking instances of heredity in

disease are in somewhat rare ailments, which have notvery much racial importance. The incidence ofalbinism is so curious that it probably results from acombination of two or more factors. In one familythere were 19 albinos out of 75 in four generations ;but it seldom appears so frequently as this. Night-blindness and colour-blindness are both, -it seems,inherited with a greater intensity than can beaccounted for by Mendel’s law. Two marriagesbetween deaf mutes produced nine children, all deafand dumb. A third marriage between two deafmutes produced four children, all deaf and dumb ;but one of them married another deaf mute, and hadtwo normal children. Hemophilia is usually sup-posed to be absolutely sex-linked ; for which reasonI should be interested to know why the Registrar-General passes, apparently without investigation, theattribution of a few deaths of females to this cause.A more interesting question for most of us is

whether the national physique is improving or

deteriorating. A Danish savant proved at the lastEugenics Congress that the stature of Danes hasrisen very appreciably in 50 years, the figures being165’42 cm. in 1852-56, and 169-11 cm. in 1904-05.The average height of the Dutch has risen from165-5 cm. in 1866 to 168 in 1899. In France theaverage height of women is said to have risen 3 cm.in 80 years. The only English figures of the samekind that I know of are measurements at MarlboroughCollege, which showed, in boys between 14 and 15,an increase from 61-4 inches in 1874-78, to 61-96 in1899-1902.

It is difficult to reconcile these favourable statisticswith an article published last year in the English

1102

Review, giving very disquieting figures about our owncountry.

Whole country 1883Grade A 1917-19. Average. (Anthropometric Com-

mittee of Brit. Assoc.).Height, 66 in..... 65-7 ........ 67-4

Chest, 34 " .... 32-5-33 ........ 36-4 1

Weight, 130 lb..... 128-4 ........ 1487

In boys of 18 the height is said to be less by1-6 inches, the chest by 0-3, the weight by 11-6 lb.The same article states that in 1924 the Commis-sioners of Constabulary reported a general deteriora-tion in the nation’s physique. The chief constableis lucky if he finds five suitable men among a hundredapplicants.

I should be much interested to know whether thefacts in this article have been challenged. If theyare true, they are, it seems to me, exceedingly serious,especially as our neighbours on the continent do not,appear to be suffering in the same way. The declineis far too great to be attributed to malnutritionduring the years of the war.

There is another way, besides dysgenic selection,in which the national stock may be impaired. Nature,we were told long ago, takes away organs which arenot used. I suppose the statement is broadly true,whatever the method may be. The free-movingcreature which becomes a parasite drops all itsorgans except those which enable it to hang on andsuck. In one of the most interesting books of recentyears,

" Social Decay and Regeneration," by AustinFreeman, which I have already quoted, the thesis ismaintained that the invention of the power-enginemarked an epoch in the history of mankind. Eversince the growth of the machine age there has beena destruction of natural beauty, a reckless squander-ing of irreplaceable natural resources, and a progres-sive loss of all the exquisite works of skill wroughtby the human hand. The old handicraftsman wasin every way a superior and more civilised animalthan the minder of machines. Machinery has trans-formed a skilled into an unskilled population. Themodern workers are parasitic on the machine whichhas ousted them from natural human occupations ;apart from the machine they would be helpless evenin the presence of abundant material; a companyof such men, left to themselves, would either perishor exist miserably as savages. Together with thisdisastrous change we see the growth of anti-socialmovements ; we see hatred of civilisation itself ; wesee whole classes banded against society, and deter-mining to be parasitic upon it ; we see increasingmultitudes accept permanently the position of pureparasites-dole-receivers ; we see the industriousproducers harassed and plundered more severelyevery year. This picture is filled in with a greatwealth of detail. The indictment is very difficult torebut; and the diagnosis is the more grave becausethe disease seems to be constitutional, the inevitableresult of changes which could not be resisted. Societymay become like the majestic sunfish-its scalescovered with lice, its intestines one tangled mass oftapeworms, its eyes pierced by trematodes, no organof its body free from swarming masses of parasites.And it may not be easy to recall the parasites tohealthy social habits. Facilis descensus Averni ... sedrevocare gradum ... hoc opus, hie labor est.

CONCLUSION.Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that it is not

too late to stop the mischief, which has not yet hadtime to go very far. We must hope that social anti-toxins will somehow be generated, and that we shallnot steer the ship upon the rocks with our eyes open.We are not yet a degenerate people ; we are a raceto which any man might be proud to belong. Butwe are not at present in a healthy condition, andunless we take the problem of racial decay in handpromptly it may be too late. I only wish I had morepractical suggestions to offer. Mr. Austin Freemanattempts some at the end of his book, but they seemto me very impracticable. All we can do at present,

I think, is to persuade our countrymen what thepressing problems really are. They are so verydifferent to those in which our precious politiciansinterest themselves.The great medical societies can do much, if they

will speak out. I do not think they quite realisehow glad the public would be to listen to them.The modern man may deny that he has a soul, andforget that he has a mind ; but he is acutely con-scious that he has a body, and therefore he has agreat respect for the doctors. I wish they wouldtestify, for I nearly always agree with them.

TWO PAPERS ON

BRONCHIECTASIS :RECENT ADVANCES IN TREATMENT AND DIAGNOSIS.*

I.—FROM THE MEDICAL ASPECT.

BY CLIVE RIVIERE, M.D., F.R.C.P. LOND.,PHYSICIAN, CITY OF LONDON HOSPITAL FOR DISEASES OF THE

HEART AND LUNGS AND EAST LONDON HOSPITALFOR CHILDREN.

BRONCHIECTASIS, if we may call it a disease, iscertainly a very protean one ; as varied, indeed, in itsclinical manifestations and therapeutic demands as ispulmonary tuberculosis itself. This is understandablewhen one recognises that its essential quality-bronchial dilatation-is the end-product of a multitudeof disease processes ; that it may attack many orfew bronchi, and these of various sizes ; that it maybe unilateral, or affect both sides of the chest; thatthe surrounding lung may be healthy, inflamed, orfibrosed ; and also that the dilated tubes themselvesmay remain comparatively healthy, be subject only tocatarrh, or may be the seat of a severe suppurativeprocess. It is this last condition, bronchiectasis withsuppuration, which I think we must have especiallyin mind in our discussion to-night, since it is herethat diagnosis and treatment are in most urgentdemand, and here, consequently, that new methodshave arisen and demand our consideration.

For our present purpose, I think, cases of clinicalbronchiectasis may be said to fall into two maingroups : 1. The slighter cases, especially seen inchildhood, mostly involving small bronchi or

bronchioles, and with mild or intermittent symptoms.2. The more serious cases, mostly found in adults,though frequently originating in childhood, wheresymptoms are continuous and severe (though oftenwith intermissions at first), and where the conditionfinally amounts to a suppuration within the dilatedand thickened tubes. A third place might be given,perhaps, to certain cases of lung suppuration wherebronchiectasis is an accompaniment of abscessformation, the result, in most cases, of aspiration ofa foreign body, generally broken tooth, wool plugs,or septic materials, during a tonsillectomy or toothextraction. These cases of " bronchiectatic lungabscess," as they have been called, are so importantin practice that they may well be included in ourpresent discussion, since bronchiectasis is one oftheir features.Now before I turn to the serious cases of bronchi-

ectasis with suppuration, which I take to be ourmain thesis, I should like, if I may, to say a few wordsabout the cases of slighter disease. As a physicianattached to a children’s hospital I am brought incontact with numbers of these cases, and my firstinterest in bronchiectasis was aroused by them to theextent of collecting and publishing a paper on

40 cases as long ago as 1905. Their importance liesin the fact that they are potentially serious, thattheir recognition and study may give the clue toadult chest disease, and that they help us to under-stand how bronchiectasis is brought into being.Often it is possible to detect dilatation of bronchioles

* Opening a discussion on Nov. 22nd before the MedicalSociety of London.