312 A^TNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1955 



"homes." This type of measure is quite eflfective in preventing the 

 propagation of the inmates. However, most social institutions of 

 these kinds are today regarded as having a curative function rather 

 than one of permanent incarceration or care, and eventually a large 

 proportion of the inmates are released and are again at liberty to 

 reproduce. To take care of the feebleminded alone in such institutions 

 would require an enormous increase in the number of institutions and 

 the amount of care beyond what is at present available, since it is 

 estimated that 1 to 3 percent of the entire population, or some 5 million 

 persons, in the United States, are feebleminded. 



A second method is that of sterilization. Tliis is also highly effective 

 for the purpose. The surgical methods now used consist of ligating or 

 cutting the sexual ducts, a method wliich prevents reproduction with- 

 out interfering with the hormonal secretions of the ovaries or testes 

 and thereby causing changes in the sexual characteristics and emotions, 

 as castration does. In the United States, 27 States have laws for the 

 sterilization of the hopelessly insane or the feebleminded, but applica- 

 tion varies greatly. The total of sterilized persons now amounts to 

 more than 50,000, of whom about half were insane and half feeble- 

 minded. By the most rigorous program of sterilization and segrega- 

 tion, mental defect and disease could be reduced perhaps 15 percent ; 

 that is, from 2 percent of the population to 1.7 percent. This may well 

 be worth doing, but it is certainly far from elimination, which is ap- 

 parently the expectation of many uninformed eugenists. 



A third method consists of the universal encouragement of birth con- 

 trol by providing free birth-control clinics and supplies. Since birth 

 control at present obtains largely in the higher social and economic 

 groups, the extension of birth control to all classes of the population 

 would, it is argued, tend to restore the balance between the differential 

 reproductive rates of the more intelligent and the less intelligent. 

 Probably to some extent this is true, and in Sweden, where this measure 

 has been carried out, it seems indeed to have brought the reproductive 

 rates of all economic classes of the population into line. However, even 

 to use the present methods of birth control requires considerable intelli- 

 gence, so that only too probably this measure will lower the reproduc- 

 tive rate of the intelligent persons of all economic and social classes, 

 but will affect that of the morons and feebleminded much less. Note 

 also that most methods of birth control are vigorously condemned by 

 certain religious groups, although in India the objections appear to be 

 weakening. 



The final negative measure is one which does not actually change 

 gene frequency but only diminishes the proportion of individuals who 

 manifest certain traits. This measure is the prohibition of consanguin- 

 eous and assortative marriages. In nearly all societies, taboos or legal 



