230 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



ing the number up to 400,000 annually. Lenz in Germany regards 10 per 

 cent, in each generation as a by no means too high percentage of steriliza- 

 tion. But he even regards "ausgesprochene Hasslichkeit," translated ugli- 

 ness, as a proper indication for this procedure! 



The effect of sterihzation is at best very, very slow. To take a single 

 actual example (after Hogben): One of the best known recessive patho- 

 logical traits in man is ordinary albinism, lack of pigmentation of skin and 

 eyes. This anomaly has an incidence of less than Yioo per cent. If steriliza- 

 tion of all albinotic individuals was carried out in every generation, it 

 w^ould require a period about equivalent to the Christian era to reduce 

 its incidence to one-half of its present dimensions, a simple consequence 

 of the fact that the heterozygous carriers continue to transmit the gene. 



These examples are not quoted as arguments against sterilization proper. 

 Its application is advisable not only in the relatively few cases in which 

 by this method we may prevent dominant defects from being transmitted 

 to the offspring, but also because irresponsible defectives like imbeciles 

 or schizophrenic individuals are entirely unfit to serve as parents and 

 educators of children, even though we cannot predict that their children 

 will be similarly affected. It should also be remembered that in several cases, 

 as for instance in schizophrenia, the fecundity of the affected is by itself 

 so reduced that, as Nissen's statistics from Norway show, we must assume 

 repeated mutations of the causative genes in order to account for the 

 fact that schizophrenia has not been ehminated by nature's own virtual 

 sterilization of the affected. On the whole, those who are affected with 

 really serious hereditary abnormalities do not propagate at a rate that is 

 sufficient to keep up their number. 



BIRTH CONTROL 



It is frequently stated that the widespread application of contraceptive 

 methods will lead to "race suicide" by lowering in a selective way the 

 productivity of the best germinal material. The advocates of this view 

 simply take it for granted that the best germinal material is represented 

 by the "good families," the upper social strata, among which birth con- 

 trol, as is well known, has been most generally applied. 



If this view is correct the upper classes would, so to speak, have attained 

 their favored position by natural right, by virtue of their superior geno- 

 typical quaUty, a conception that has been illustrated by the following 

 metaphor: The population is compared to a container filled with milk, a 

 fluid in which larger and smaller fat drops are dispersed. After a while 

 these drops of fat will float to the surface, and the largest, fattest drops of 

 fat will form the upper layer of the cream, the creme de la creme of the 

 French. 



From a biological point of view this metaphor is entirely misleading. 

 Let us assume that a particular individual, due to his superior genotypical 



