284 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



become perpetual is due in part to the charity that, in 

 aiding the poor, helps pauperism to mate with pauper- 

 ism. It is the duty of true charity to 

 Degeneration ^, , , , , 



^, , u ■ remove the causes of weakness and suf- 

 through chanty. 



fermg. It is equally her duty to see that 

 weakness and suffering are not needlessly perpetuated. 



Startling results may follow from the selective breed- 

 ing and preservation of paupers. In the valley of Aosta 



in northern Italy, and in other Alpine 

 The cretins of • . , j ,i r r ■ ,- 



. regions, is found the form of idiocy 



known as cretinism. What is the primi- 

 tive cause of the cretin, and what is the causal connec- 

 tion of cretinism with goitre, a disease of the thyroid 

 glands which always accompanies it, I do not know. 



It suffices for our purpose to notice that the severe 

 military selection which ruled in Switzerland, Savoy, 

 and Lombardy for many generations took the strongest 

 and healthiest peasants to the wars, and left the idiot 

 and goitrous to carry on the affairs of life at home. To 

 bear a goitre was to exempt from military services. 

 Thus in some regions the disease has been a local badge 

 of honour. It is said that when iodine lozenges were 

 given to the children of Savoy in the hope of prevent- 

 ing the enlargement and degeneration of the thyroid 

 gland, mothers would take this remedy away from the 

 boys, preferring the goitre to military service. 



In the city of Aosta the goitrous cretin has been for 

 centuries an object of charity. The idiot has received 

 generous support, while the poor farmer or labourer with 

 brains and no goitre has had the severest of struggles. 

 In the competition of life a premium has thus been 

 placed on imbecility and disease. The cretin has mated 

 with the cretin, the goitre with the goitre, and charity 

 and religion have presided over the union. The result 

 is that idiocy is multiplied and intensified. The cretin 



