INFANTILE MORTALITY 193 



Again, we note in the family Nos. 3 — 15, Generation 

 D, there were thirteen children, but ten are dead and 

 several were stillborn. The mother is insane. Before 

 her marriage she had an illegitimate child, which is 

 epileptic. 



In family Nos. 49 — 59, Generation D, there were 

 eleven children, but four are dead. A glance through 

 this Pedigree and through the preceding Pedigree A will 

 reveal at once the large number of gaps where Dr. 

 Rutherfurd was unable to obtain an}' information as to 

 the sex of the members concerned. In the present 

 Pedigree there is a total of one hundred and eight indi- 

 viduals, and of these sixty-five are of unknown sex. 

 Everyone who is familiar with Pedigree collecting and 

 construction knows that this absence of specific informa- 

 tion as to sex is an indication that the children died early, 

 and their sex is forgotten b}' the family which knew them.* 



Now, considering all these facts together, it is clear 

 there is shown in this Chart a clanship of defective and 

 weak families. I There is no inherent vigour in the 

 majority of the individuals of which these families consist. 

 The}' never can, under any circumstances, make desirable, 

 useful, or beautiful citizens. Where, then, we are im- 

 pelled once more to ask, is the common-sense or the 

 humanitarianism of making conscious and extremely 

 expensive efforts to lower the death-rate of the infants of 

 a stock like this ? Do we want to rear a nation of 

 miserable families, so utterly non-viable that half its 

 members cannot even be born alive ? And yet that is 

 the path of national degradation and decline along which 

 an army of sentimentalists and of medical officials seeking 

 to justif}' their salaried positions are attempting to lead 

 this nation. 



There is yet one other point of apparently sinister 

 significance which should not be overlooked. It is a well- 

 known fact that although on an average there are an 

 equal number of males and females born, yet more male 

 infants die than females. That leaves us, even under 



* Dr. Rutherfurd tells me that is the true interpretation of most of 

 the blanks in his charts. But in some cases the patience of his informants 

 became exhausted, and he had to content himself with getting the 

 essential facts and letting the sex of unaffected persons go. — [Editor.] 



f See also "Coroner and a Biological Fact," p. '205. 



N 



