THE DETERMINATION OF 

 DISPUTED PARENTAGE AS A FACTOR 

 IN REDUCING INFANT MORTALITY 



RoswELL H. Johnson 

 Lecturer in Eugenics, University of Pittsburgh' 



WHILE juries have been called 

 upon to compare in court the 

 features of children and al- 

 leged parents, the uncertainty 

 of such superficial comparisons has pre- 

 vented any important legal use of the 

 determination of parentage. The most 

 widely known of such cases have been in 

 cases of contested wills or titles. These 

 cases, while spectacular, represent only 

 a small part of the very wide application 

 that would be made of this method, were 

 it possible to unerringly establish parent- 

 age in illegitimacy cases. At the present 

 time, if an illegitimate mother sues an 

 alleged father for the support of her 

 child, the defense on his part is usually 

 that some other person might have been 

 the father of the child, and because of 

 difficulty of rebutting this defense under 



the present methods, it has been very 

 difficult to fasten the support of the 

 child on the father. If it is possible to 

 elaborate methods by which parentage 

 can be surely determined, so that al- 

 leged parentage can be definitely proven 

 or disproven, then the support of the 

 child can be fastened upon the father 

 in cases where he can be located and has 

 the necessary income. 



The admissibility of the child for the 

 inspection^ of the jury is now well 

 established for children over two^ years 

 of age, but the preponderance of deci- 

 sions excludes this evidence for establish- 

 ing resemblances below that age, on the 

 ground that the child's features have 

 not yet acquired maturity and perma- 

 nence. In our present state of know- 

 ledge this rule can be little criticized, but 



1 For admissibility of child for inspection: 



Gilmanton vs. Ham, 38 N. H., 108. 



State vs. Arnold, 13 Ired. (N. C), 184. 



Finnegan vs. Dugan, 96 Mass., 197. 



State vs. Woodruff, 67 N. C, 89. 



Morrison vs. People, 52 111. App., 482. 



State vs. Smith, 6 N. W., 153. (2 years 1 month.) 



Scott vs. Donovan, 26 N. E., 871. (Regardless of age.) 



Gaint vs. State, 14 Atlantic, 600. 



Kelly vs. State, 133 Ala., 195. 



Shailer vs. Bullock, 78 Conn., 65. (10 months.) 



Higley vs. Bostock, 79 Conn., 97. 



State vs. Sardell, 46 A., 1083. 



Brantley vs. State, 65 la., 678. 



Lard. vs. State, 1055 W., 90. 



Sins vs. State, 84 S. E., 976. 



State vs. Browning, 152 P., 672. 



Smith vs. Hawkins, 47 S. O., 429. 



Commonwealth vs. Pearl, ii Pa. Super. Ct., 97. 



Robnett vs. The People, etc., 16 111. Appellate Court, 299. 

 ^ Against" admitting a very young child: 



Clark vs. Bradstreet, 80 Me., 454. (6 weeks old.) 



Hanawalt vs. State (1885), 64 Wis., 84. (Younger than 1 vear.) 



Overlook vs. Hall, 81 Maine (1889). (6 months old.) 



State vs. Harvey, 84 N. W., 535. (9 months old.) 



State vs. Danforth, 48 Iowa, 43. 



Rush vs. State, 19 Indiana, 152. 



Ingram vs. State, 37 N. W., 943. 



Shorter z;.?. Judd, 42 Pacific, 337. 

 of maturity and permanence.) 



(3 months old.) 

 (3 m.onths old.) 



(At an age when its features have not assumed some degree 



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