INFANTILE MORTALITY 191 



twenty-six are females and thirteen males. But there are 

 twenty-four individuals in the chart with unknown sex, 

 and it is probable that they would have redressed the 

 balance had their sex been knowTi. We cannot, therefore, 

 conclude that this clanship had a tendency to produce a 

 large proportion of females. Roughl}^ speaking, in normal 

 cases the sexes are about equal in numbers.* 



The fifth feature of interest has an important socio- 

 logical bearing. There are a great number of people, 

 mainly medical men in Government or parochial official 

 positions, or who contemplate occupying such positions, 

 who are making a great outcry concerning the rate of 

 infantile mortalit}^ among the lower social classes. They 

 urge the creation of more officials and the spending of 

 public money in order to minimise or avert this mortality. 

 But in their pleas they never allude to the primary and 

 crucial consideration, as to whether the race which they 

 desire to save is, from the civic and ethical standpoints, 

 worth the outlay of a sixpence. From the economic 

 standpoint it can be shown that many of the people whom 

 they would save by the outlay of thousands of pounds 

 are not worth five pounds apiece. But we are not con- 

 cerned with the economic but the biological worth of these 

 races. Now let us glance at this Pedigree, and bear in 

 mind that it is by no means as bad in the biological de- 

 fectiveness which it manifests as many of the Pedigrees 

 of this class of citizens with which we are acquainted. We 

 have seen far worse in our workhouse investigations. 

 Notwithstanding that it is a better pedigree than some, 

 nevertheless, it everywhere manifests signs of low 

 vitality. Of the twelve twins, as Dr. Rutherfurd has 

 pointed out, only four are alive. The others died young. 

 Of the ten children in the present generation, four died 

 in fits in infanc}', two were stillborn, one has Raynaud's 

 disease, and one suffers from laryngismus stridulus. 

 Now Raj^naud's disease and laryngismus are both diseases 

 indicative of nerve degenerations or abnormalities. 



From the standpoint of national welfare and virility 

 is it common-sense, or is it even humanitarianism, to go 

 out of our way to save the offspring of such a stock, and 



* See, however, Editorial Xote, page 193. 



