526 Animal Biology 



tests cannot prove that a certain man is the father of that particular oflf- 

 spring but only whether he could be the father. This means that a cer- 

 tain offspring might have been produced by any one of a number of in- 

 dividuals belonging to certain different blood groups. In other instances 

 a certain child with a specific blood group could not have been produced 

 by certain individuals of other definite blood groups. Information se- 

 cured from types of blood is helpful in ascertaining certain racial and 

 national information as well as in certain legal cases. 



XIII. IMPROVEMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE— EUGENICS 



The human race has only recently become interested in the scientific 

 improvement of the members of which it is composed, in spite of the 

 fact that men have for a long time attempted to create and maintain 

 better and better types of plants and other animals. The individual 

 member can be improved by bettering their environment, thereby per- 

 mitting that which they have inherited (physically and mentally) to 

 develop as far as possible. If all members of the race develop what they 

 have inherited to a maximum, the race as a whole is benefited. How- 

 ever, it must be clearly understood that such benefits are purely tempo- 

 rary and do not improve the hereditary genes or factors of the indi- 

 viduals when these genes are transmitted to future generations. In 

 other words, this temporary improvement in developed characteristics 

 does not take the place of real improvement of the heredity mechanism. 

 Man has attempted to improve the human race by preventing those with 

 extremely undesirable mental or physical traits from propagating their 

 kind. One procedure has been the segregation in institutions of those 

 with undesirable traits, but the trouble has been that there are more 

 afflicted than can be accommodated in our present institutions. Pres- 

 sure has also been applied to release individuals who are lightly afflicted 

 but who are potentially undesirable from a heredity standpoint. In some 

 cases the afflicted have been protected in institutions until they are ma- 

 ture. They are then released to propogate their kind. Add to this the 

 fact that the rate of reproduction of mentally deficient couples is about 

 twice that of couples with high mentality. 



Another procedure now legalized in many states is sterilization of cer- 

 tain classes of defectives of both sexes in such a way that reproduction 

 of defective offspring is impossible, though the normal sexual relations 

 of the married state are in no way affected. In each sex the method is 

 simply to cut the ducts leading from the sex organs so that sex cells can- 



