In this connection another figure, C 45, by von den Velden ought to be mentioned. He shows, from investigations made by von Riffel, that the physical condition of childless couples is on the average inferior to that of fertile parents. This, however, by no means holds good in every case. Evidence to the contrary is given by the pedigree of an aristocratic family which has died out in the male line. It may be looked upon as typical. One generation (the second), with three times as many grown up men than women, produces only four boys (44% of the children), of whom two reach maturity. With the fourth generation the male issue dies out. Though a large majority of the members of all three generations (2-4th) have good health and attain to an exceptionally high age, most of the female lines also die out. Only in two branches, which spring from the marriage of an aristocratic daughter with a man from the people, there are children in the fifth generation of whom at least a part promise a healthy progeny. Fahlbeck, too, has drawn attention to the fact that the dying out Swedish aristocracy shows no signs of striking degeneracy in the individual.
This fact is of the greatest theoretical and practical importance because it proves that there exists, up to a certain degree, an independent degeneration of the germ plasm, even as the germ plasm may remain unaffected by damage to the soma. That such a one-sided degeneration of the germ plasm with respect to the power of reproduction may take place among animals has been known for a long time.
In particular, Chs. Darwin has collected facts of this kind in his "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication." For civilised peoples it is a matter for reflection that with animals even slight deviations from their customary "natural" mode of living may lead to such serious consequences.
RACE-HYGIENE.
As the nature and aims of race-hygiene are still unknown in wide circles it will be useful to show in Tables C 46 and C 47, by A. Ploëtz, what its position is amongst other sciences and what the various branches of its activity consist in.
Many theoretical workers hold that the most important mission or race-hygiene is to fight against Therapeutics and Hygiene of the individual, for about these they have the most serious misgivings. They consider, that by maintaining inferior variations up to the age of reproduction, the average quality of the race must suffer and that to certain defects—which otherwise would rapidly disappear—an opportunity is given to spread through an entire people. This point of view, short sighted as it may be, must be examined into. It appears to be forgotten that on the one hand hygiene is powerless in cases of a high degree of degeneration and that on the other hand hygiene, by prevention of illness, does away with a number of causes of inferiority. Finally it appears to be entirely overlooked that with the best inherent qualities and unfavourable surroundings the individual development may be poor and stunted. Of what use are the highest potentialities if they remain latent? The main point is that so far convincing proofs of the preponderant harmfulness of hygiene are entirely absent. (S. Gruber, Heredity, Selection and Hygiene. Deutsche med. Wochenschr, 1909).
The Increasing Frequency of Obstetrical Operations and their Significance
to the Race.
(Based on the official statistics of Baden by Dr. Agnes Bluhm.)