The Social Hygiene Movement 



75 



less specialized mass of protoplasm and 

 controlling the behavior of the whole 

 in response of course to external 

 stimuli, is not at all incompatible with 

 a simple mechanism of heredity and a 

 simple physiological conception of de- 

 velopment such as that offered by 

 Child. It is, of course, impossible to 

 assume that the genetic basis of the 

 differences among the millions of species 

 of animals and plants, and the millions 

 of individuals within each species can 

 be very simple. It must be remem- 

 bered, however, that a given cell 

 complex has not developed out of 

 nothing in the course of a few weeks, 

 as the individual seems to do. It is 

 the result of millions of years of 

 uninterrupted slow change. The prob- 

 lem of heredity is merely to explain 

 the lack of interruption in this history, 

 i.e. the persistence of the complicated 

 cell organization through cell division 

 and fertilization. The mechanisms by 



which all of the essential entities within 

 the cell are caused to reproduce by 

 simultaneous fission (mitosis) and 

 under other conditions to conjugate 

 in pairs (synapsis) need not be very 

 complex. 



Ac5 to individual development, there 

 seems to be no incompatibility with 

 Child's explanation of its course as the 

 behavior pattern of a particular kind 

 of cell in relation to the metabolic 

 gradient determined ultimately by the 

 environment. The hypothesis that the 

 activities of the different unit factors 

 vary at different rates according to 

 the position of the cell in the gradient 

 pattern of the developing organism and 

 to the specialization which the cell has 

 already undergone as a result of its 

 past history, thus determining the 

 details of the "organismic pattern," 

 in reaction of course with the environ- 

 ment, seems a necessary supplement 

 to Child's highly suggestive hypothesis. 



Fewer Births in United States 



Births in the registration area (com- 

 prising about 58% of the total popula- 

 tion) of the United States in 1919, 

 recently compiled by the Census 

 Bureau, show a slight decrease for the 

 first time. This is presumably a 

 consequence of the war, and the 

 absence from home of a considerable 

 part of the male population. 



In the birth registration area exclu- 

 sive of Rhode Island, which failed to 

 send in transcripts of birth certificates, 

 1,365,585 infants were born alive in 

 1919. The total number of deaths in 

 the same area was 791,732, the births 

 exceeding the deaths by 573,853, or 

 72 . 5 per cent. 



The number of births for the year 

 1919 compared with 1918 shows a 

 decrease of 7 per cent in the registration 

 area. Each state shows a decrease, the 

 per cent ranging from less than one in 

 Maryland to ten in Utah and Wiscon- 

 sin. This is in marked contrast to 

 previous years as the number of births 

 had increased from year to year. 



The infant mortality rate (number of 

 deaths of infants under 1 year of age 

 per 1,000 born alive) is 87 in 1919 and 

 is the lowest infant mortality rate on 

 record in the birth registration area. 

 Among the states these rates range 

 from 63 in Oregon and Washington to 

 113 in South Carolina. 



The Social Hygiene Movement 



Sanity in Sex, by William J. Fielding. 

 Pp. 333. New York, Dodd, Mead 

 and Co., 1920. 



Mr. Fielding presents a survey of the 

 sex-education movement of recent 

 years, particularly that which was an 

 outgrowth of attempts to protect the 



health and morale of the armed forces 

 during the war. He gives one of the 

 best popular accounts available of 

 the social hygiene work of this period. 

 His chapters dealing with birth-control 

 and psycho-analysis are less adequate, 

 and none too well founded, biologi- 

 cally.— P. P. 



