474 INTEMPERANCE AND INSANITY 



particular variations that cause insanity are due to it. As we 

 have noted, medical men have been accustomed to attribute all 

 sorts of filial defects to all sorts of parental and ancestral ill- 

 conditions. 1 Such evidence has often been tendered to Royal 

 Commissions and other State inquiries, and has guided or mis- 

 guided them in their decisions. The Report of the Royal Com- 

 mission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, the most 

 recent of such State inquiries, however, indicates a rapid and a 

 very remarkable change of medical opinion. After discussing the 

 evidence in detail and noting that the weight of evidence is entirely 

 in favour both of the spontaneous origin and subsequent inherita- 

 bility of feeble-mindedness, the Report continues : 



777. " The view that injurious conditions in the environment 

 which affect the parent or the child in utero or after birth are of 

 importance in the production of feeble-mindedness needs some 

 further practical comment. The Memoranda quoted in the pre- 

 ceding paragraph (549) 2 contain strong arguments against any 

 likelihood of such causes being in any way operative as causes. 

 Many races have been exposed to one or other of all the ill-condi- 

 tions which have been alleged as causes of filial deterioration. In 

 every case the only apparent effect has been to render these races 

 capable of dwelling comparatively unharmed under such conditions. 

 It is not to be conceived that a race which deteriorates in every 

 generation can emerge from the struggle not weakened, but 

 strengthened. Moreover, almost conclusive disproof of this 

 hypothesis is furnished by the facts submitted to us by the medical 

 investigators. These observers show that feeble-mindedness is 

 practically as common in rural as in urban districts, and probably 

 no less prevalent amongst the well-to-do than amongst the poor. 

 It is clear that if the contentions of these witnesses who place 

 predominant stress on adverse environmental influences as a cause 

 of feeble-mindedness were just, there would be an unquestionable 

 prevalence of this affliction among the urban poor the chief 

 victims of poverty and disease." 3 



1 Here is an example. " The Feeble-minded in Ireland. When a country with 

 few industries except agriculture has its life blood drained by the emigration of 

 the young and fit, and when those who remain are depressed by the discouraging 

 results of trying to keep their heads above water by tilling the soil, it is small 

 wonder that the commissioners charged with the task of deciding what steps 

 should be taken for the better care and control of the insane and feeble-minded, 

 should have found a grave state of things to exist." (Leading Article, British 

 Medical Journal, Sept. I2th 1908.) 



2 The allusion is to contributions by Sir E. Ray Lankester and the present writer. 



3 Op. cit., vol. viii. p. 184-5. 



