Criminality and economic conditions

by Willem Adriaan Bonger

What are at present the principal characteristics of the relation between degeneracy and the present economic system with its consequences? Some authors in treating of the etiology of degeneracy express themselves only in general terms, and point out no other cause than “unfavorable circumstances.” Professor Jelgersma, for example, says: “The simple psychoses, melancholia, mania, etc. are caused by unfavorable circumstances. The cause of the psychoses of degeneracy is deeper; the unfavorable circumstances have exercised their influence from generation to generation, and thus an individual is born who is abnormal from birth.”[591]

These unfavorable circumstances must be more precisely defined, therefore. We shall divide them into four great groups.[592]

First. The material condition of the poor classes. “To be well,” says Dr. Toulouse, “one must be sufficiently fed, must clothe himself according to the season, be clean, not work beyond one’s strength, and be more or less exempt from care.”[593] This is a simple truth of which all the world is convinced when it is a question of themselves or of their families, but which the physicians forget only too often when they are speaking of the social causes of diseases.[594]

In the first place the poor classes are badly and insufficiently fed, and as a consequence grow weak, and the children born to them are inferior physically and mentally. The insufficient nourishment of the mother during her pregnancy, and the insufficient nourishment of [[661]]the child during the first years of his life, are especially fatal to him. Then those who are badly fed are predisposed to tuberculosis, scrofula, and rickets, which, in their turn, may be the causes of degeneracy.[595] Rickety women often have a contraction of the pelvis, which hinders child-birth, and may cause a lesion to the infant’s brain. Note, for example, the opinion of Dr. Näcke, who says: “The social misery, bad hygiene and food … often enough beget a miserable generation and must already have injured the germ. The same causes, however, on the other hand easily produce feeble women with qualitatively and quantitatively insufficient milk, and most of all with a narrow pelvis, through which births take place with difficulty and to the detriment of the brain of the child. If now the above named factors come in later to affect the child, the derangement of nutrition will be further increased, and it is no wonder if all kinds of rickety and scrofulous symptoms appear in the body, and all kinds of children’s ailments injure both body and mind.”[596]

In the second place, unsanitary dwellings and insufficient clothing are the cause of all sorts of diseases, especially tuberculosis, which in their turn may lead to degeneracy.[597] The density of population in the great cities exercises its influence in the same direction.

In the third place, the long duration and intensity of the work forced upon the proletariat also contribute to degeneracy. For each individual there is a fixed measure of labor that he cannot pass without experiencing harmful consequences in body and mind. Dr. Lewy describes them as follows: “The consequences of immoderately long hours of labor are, a certain overexcitement of the nervous system, which later gives place to a permanent debility, with which may be associated a dull headache as well as an inability to think clearly. If the overwork continues for a longer time, soon all the systems of the body are affected, the heart and larger arteries as well are injured in structure and function, disturbances of the regular circulation appear, manifested partly in swellings in various parts of the body, especially in the feet, and partly through hemorrhages. The brain ceases to function regularly, and so-called brain-symptoms appear, such as vertigo, ringing in the ears, deafness, defective vision, paralysis, and apoplexy. In the same way the liver, kidneys, and the digestive tract may be drawn into the general weakening process. The muscles become weak and slack, the body disposed to epidemic [[662]]diseases, but especially prepared to vocational diseases, to which persons in a run-down condition most easily fall victim. If, then, the end of the worker is not brought about prematurely by some intercurrent disease like typhus, under the immoderate strain he uses up his existing forces faster than he is in a position to replace them, and wastes away with tuberculosis of the lungs, so much the quicker, of course, the weaker he is constitutionally, and the younger he was when he had to submit to excessive labor.”[598]

The harmful consequences of long working hours make themselves felt especially in the trades which are already dangerous to health, like those where there is a great deal of dust produced, or those which use poisons like lead, mercury, etc.[599] Monotony of work joined with long hours is also a cause of physical and intellectual deterioration. Professor Vogt says: “The less variety work presents, the more fatiguing is it, since it is only the same part of the muscles that are continually called upon, while the rest of the muscular system, in accordance with a well-known physiological law, degenerates from misuse and wastes away. To a still higher degree the uniformity of work has a deteriorating effect upon the mental powers; these become weakened much more quickly in the case of long continued fatigue than the muscles, while the unexercised mental faculties at the same time become stunted.”[600]

The present economic system has also led to the work of women and children, and consequently to an important cause of the degeneration of the race. The number of women forced to take part in trades for which they are ill-fitted by nature is very great. The fear of being discharged, and the impossibility of doing without their wages make women with child continue to work up to the last moment of their pregnancy, and recommence shortly after childbirth, leading to very harmful results both for them and for their children.[601] Then child labor prevents the normal development of the children and ages them prematurely.[602]

Further, the cares and restlessness consequent upon the uncertainty of life may be causes of the weakening of the nervous system and the origin of a neurosis.

Finally, when an individual of this class falls sick his restoration to [[663]]health may be hindered by the lack of care and medical assistance and the necessity of recommencing work too soon.[603]