Pearson: The First-Born's Handicap 



335 



Thus general statistics on the weight- 

 ing of the first-born must carefully 

 distinguish whether it is actually the 

 individual, or the family, that is 

 weighted; and in this fact lies comfort 

 for first-born members of healthy 

 families. 



Early critics appeared to think that 

 the whole problem of the handicapping 

 of the first-born might be explained 

 away by this fact that in many cases 

 it is the family, rather than the in- 

 dividual, which is handicapped. Pear- 

 son's first statistics of the tuberculous 

 were indeed vulnerable on this ground, 

 but his re-analysis of the data takes 

 both these factors into account and 

 appears to show that in many ca.ses at 

 least the first-born are handicapped 

 altogether apart from the recognized 

 weighting of small families. 



EVIL OF SMALL FAMILIES 



If this be the case, it seems evident 

 that, from a biological point of view, and 

 entirely apart from its effect on up- 

 setting the selective birth rate, the 

 small family is detrimental to race 

 progress. That, says Pearson, "is the 

 reason why I have approached this 

 subject at all. After this lecture was 

 delivered, I was asked by an anxious 

 mother: 'Why, even if the doctrine be 

 true, should it be published to the world 

 as it would only alarm and so further 

 injure a class of the community already 

 assorted to be handicapped?' My 

 reply to that question is: 'Study in 

 the first place the incidence rates of 

 these abnormalities we are discussing, 

 and you will see that it is only in mass- 

 statistics that the handicapping be- 

 comes sensible.' Further, I must add 

 that in the science of National Eugenics 

 we have to consider v/hat profits the 

 nation at large, and I feel strongly con- 

 vinced that the present tendency (ex- 

 hibited so markedly in France),'* to 

 make the first-born 50% instead of 

 something less than 22% of the whole 

 number of births, spells degeneracy. 

 The individual feelings of the first-born, 



3 This does not necessarily contradict the generally well established principle that degenerate 

 stocks are as a rule very fertile. 



* The German birth-rate is notably high, but in Berlin the percentage of first-born in every 100 

 births had increased from eighteen in 1880 to thirty-three in 1906. The reader will recall that 

 Cattell's statistics show American men of science almost habituallv to have families of two children. 



population are an inferior group, because 

 they come from inferior families. This 

 point was particularly brought out by 

 Dr. Alfred Ploetz of Munich, president 

 of the International Society for Race 

 Hygiene, in an address which he delivered 

 before the First International Eugenics 

 Congress (London, 1912). He said: 



"Among the children of a number of 

 marriages taken at random, there are a 

 good many children of parents who 

 died early, consequently there is a high 

 proportion of children who represent 

 early members in birth-rank, and prin- 

 cipally first, second and third-born. 

 Because of the death of -one or both 

 parents there could be no later born. 

 First, second and third-born children 

 therefore come in a far greater percent- 

 age from early deceased, that is on the 

 average weaker parents, than do the 

 later born, and they will therefore 

 inherit in a higher degree the weaker 

 constitution of their weaker parents." 



"There is further another factor 

 weighting small families," Pearson adds, 

 "namely, they represent very fre- 

 quently an exhausted virility in the 

 parents. Certain types of parental 

 degeneracy seem incapable of producing 

 more than one or two children at most,^ 

 and the children of such parents are 

 themselves feeble. But, if any small 

 families are thus selected, we shall 

 increase the number of early borns in 

 the diseased population, for such small 

 families have no late-borns." 



Furthermore, he suggests "that the 

 growth of the first child is hampered by 

 conditions [physiological in the mother] 

 which exist to a far less extent for the 

 following births; but these conditions 

 will be much harder for the first-born 

 child when its mother is forty than when 

 she is twenty-five. But the resulting 

 family in the former case is likely to be 

 far smaller than in the latter case. In 

 other words, the handicapping of the 

 first-born in small families may be 

 increased by the addition of many 

 small families in which the first-born is 

 also late-born." 



