Arny: Breeding for Atropine 



167 



the chemical constitution of the plants, 

 but they were marked enou<?h to war- 

 rant especial attention during the com- 

 ing season, when a selected second 

 generation will be grown. 



In conclusion, it must be remembered 

 that this work covers only one season 



and hence must be regarded as merely 

 ])reliminary. It is highly encouraging 

 to US, however, in indicating the ex- 

 treme variation of atropine content in 

 the 1 belladonna plant and giving hope 

 that valuable commercial results can 

 be se::ured bv selection. 



Deaths Due to Childbirth 



In 1913 at least 15,000 women died 

 in the United States from conditions 

 caused by childbirth. This makes a 

 death rate little lower than that due to 

 typhoid; it is a much higher rate than 

 is found in most fore gn countries. 

 The subject is considered in Bulletin 

 No. 19 of the Children's Bureau, by 

 Dr. Grace L. Meigs, who outlines 

 ways in which this mortality can be 

 greatly reduced. A large part of it, 

 she says, is due to superstition and 

 ignorance. 



There can be no question of the 

 desirability of reducing the number of 

 deaths from this cause, yet it is worth 

 noting that their eugenic import is not 

 simple. It might be argued that the 

 women who die are on the average 



mentally, if not physically, inferior to 

 those who survive. If so, this form of 

 death is to some extent selective and 

 eugenic, like infant mortality. The 

 fact that the maternal death rate is 

 twice as high among negroes as whites 

 lends weight to this view. 



On the other hand, maternal mor- 

 tality would be dysgenic, if fear of it 

 prevented superior women from having 

 children, or from having as many 

 children as they would otherwise bear. 



But e\'en if this barbarous death rate 

 results in some eugenic gain, that gain 

 can better be secured in other ways, 

 and Dr. Meigs' bulletin, declaring that 

 most maternal deaths are unnecessary, 

 should and doubtless will receive wide- 

 spread attention. 



An Experiment in Long-Continued Inbreeding 



More than 25,000 guinea-pigs have 

 been reared by the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry on its experimental farm at 

 Beltsville, Md., to test the effects of in- 

 breeding. Brother and sister have been 

 mated in each generation, and some of 

 the families have now reached the 

 seventeenth generation. While a few 

 strains have run out, others are nearly 

 as vigorous as are the control families. 

 But the important fact is that there is no 

 general deterioriation ; the various de- 

 fects that have appeared are not correl- 

 ated. One family becomes strong in 

 one respect and weak in another; in a 

 second family conditions are exactly 

 the reverse. Such a state of affairs 

 does not lend any support to the popular 

 idea that inbreeding necessarily pro- 

 duces degeneracy. The various kinds 



of deterioration are to be accounted for 

 in different ways. In general, the 

 belief of geneticists is apparently con- 

 firmed, that even long-continued in- 

 breeding does not necessarily mean 

 deterioration. It tends to make the 

 members of a family more alike, and 

 to perpetuate all variations that occur. 

 If the strain is a good one, inbreeding 

 will improve it; if it is a weak or de- 

 fective one, inbreeding will bring the 

 defects into prominence and probably 

 lead to the elimination of the strain. 

 When the results of this investigation 

 (which is in charge of Dr. Sewall 

 Wright) are finally published, they 

 should furnish more precise and detailed 

 information about the effects of in- 

 breeding than has heretofore been 

 available. 



