WEAKNESS OF ELDEST SONS 



Statistics of Physical Examinations at Amherst College Seem to Bear Out Theory 



That Younger Sons are Physically Superior to the First-Born — Age of 



Parents Does Not Appear to Exercise Much Influence. 



John H. Chase, Youngstown, Ohio. 



FEW factors in constructive eugen- 

 ics have been more emphasized 

 during recent years than the 

 desirability of large families among 

 superior people; and this factor received 

 particular attention when English bio- 

 metrists published studies purporting 

 to show, as one reason for the advantage 

 of large families to society, that the 

 elder children were inferior to those 

 who followed; and, consequently, that 

 the general average of the family, if 

 small, was considerably below what it 

 would have been if larger. 



Karl Pearson, of London, the most 

 noted proponent of this theory, was 

 convinced that first and second born 

 children are on the average inferior to 

 their later born brothers and sisters, 

 not only physically, but mentally and 

 morally as well. In his pamphlet on 

 "The Problem of Practical Eugenics," 

 Pearson said: 



"If our observations arc correct, and 

 I believe them to be so, then the mental 

 and physical condition of the first and 

 second born members of the family is 

 differentiated from that of the later 

 members. They are of a more nervous 

 and less stable constitution. We find 

 that the neurotic, the insane, the tuber- 

 ciilous and the albinotic, are more fre- 

 quent among the elder born. Dr. 

 Goring 's results from criminality show 

 the same law. ... In the tuber- 

 culous, the insane and criminal stocks, 

 the first few members are weighted. 

 But the result of this new law is remark- 

 able. It means that if you reduce the 

 size of the family, you will tend to 

 decrease the relative proportion of the 



mentally and physically sound in the 

 community." 



A proposition of such direct applica- 

 tion and popular interest naturally 

 aroused widespread attention. T. B. 

 Macaulay, a Montreal member of the 

 American Genetic Association, critically 

 analyzed the statistics,^ and declared 

 that the conclusions drawn from them 

 were a mere statistical fallacy. Others 

 followed him, until the method of com- 

 piling the statistics on which the theory 

 rests was to a large extent discredited. 



This method was to take the records 

 of some institution — a sanatoriimi or 

 penitentiary, for example — as a basis. 

 The inmates were questioned as to the 

 number of children in the families to 

 which they belonged, and their own 

 order in the families. The niimber of 

 first-bom inmates was compared with 

 the total number of first-bom children 

 in the families; and so on with the 

 second, third and later born. The per- 

 centages thus found have been higher 

 in the case of early bom inmates than 

 of later born. It has been pointed out, 

 however, that this result has no sig- 

 nificance, and must necessarily follow, 

 because the yoimger members of fami- 

 lies are, quite naturally, not as numerous 

 as the older ones in groups of adiilts, 

 whether such groups be imdesirable, as 

 the tuberculous, the insane or the 

 criminal, or unobjectionable, as doctors, 

 lawyers, clergymen, heavyweights, mar- 

 ried men or fathers. By statistics com- 

 piled in this way, it is argued, it woiild 

 be possible to "prove" that elder bom 

 children are superior to the younger 

 born, quite as easily as that they are 



iln the American Breeders' Magazine, Vol. II, no. 3, p. 165, July, 1911. He also called atten- 

 tion to the matter at the Eugenics Congress in London, 1912. 



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