3o6 HEREDITY AND DISEASE 



subject who marries before he is thoroughly and definitely cured 

 commits a crime, not only because there is the possibility — indeed, 

 the probability — that he .infects his wife, but also because he 

 deliberately [voraussichtlich] begets syphilitic children. . . , The 

 Eugenic office of the future, which will have to test applicants 

 for a marriage-licence, not merely juristically or socially, but 

 also biologically and medically, to decide as to their fitness for 

 legitimate reproduction, will have no difficulty in refusing per- 

 mission to uncured syphilitics and incurable drunkards, and 

 perhaps also to those who are patently tubercular " (freely 

 translated from Martins, 1905, p. 24). 



That the best general constitutions should be mated is the 

 first rule of good breeding. 



That a markedly good constitution should not be paired with 

 a markedly bad one is a second rule — a disregard of which 

 means wanton wastage. 



A third rule is that a person exhibiting a bias towards a 

 specific disease should not marry another with the same bias. 

 A man with a phthisical tendency, if he marries at all, should 

 not marry a woman whose family history is known to show 

 many phthisical subjects. 



In other words, every possible care should be taken of a 

 relatively sound stock. The careless tainting of a good stock 

 is a social crime. Every reasonable precaution should be taken 

 to prevent a badly tainted stock from diffusing itself. 



(8) Besides the advance of preventive medicine, the spreading 

 enthusiasm for health, the awakening of a eugenic conscience, 

 the suggestions as to "marriage-licences" and other forms of 

 social selection, all making for the greater healthfulness of the 

 human breed, we have, of course, to remember that our race has 

 not got beyond the scope of natural selection, much as we try 

 to evade it. 



In the course of natural selection,, keenest during the early 

 years of life, the most tainted and the least immune or resistent 



