NATURAL SELECTION 37 



be a special and isolated weakness in an otherwise 

 sound individual. In that case, it may well be that 

 he may possess other qualities of such value that, 

 from the point of view of the nation, it may be worth 

 while to encourage his reproduction in the hope that 

 among his offspring may be found some who possess 

 the good characters freed from the taint of suscepti- 

 bility to this one disease. Restrictive measures may 

 be deferred till we come to deal with those others 

 among his children who are tuberculous with no 

 redeeming features. In such a case, then, the original 

 tuberculous patient with other brilliant qualities may 

 be worth preserving from the racial point of view. 



But, as Dr Tredgold says, tuberculosis is too often 

 but an outward and visible sign of an inward weakness 

 which affects the whole constitution, and appears in 

 other members of the same family, if not in the same 

 individual, as general debility, alcoholism, or mental 

 defect. With such a patient, curative treatment may 

 be putting in his power the possibility of perpetuat- 

 ing manifold infirmities, any one of which prevents 

 its possessor from being self-supporting, and dooms 

 him to be a perpetual burden on his more efficient 

 compatriots. 



Our modern sense of responsibility and compassion 

 requires that even such a one should be succoured. 

 Nevertheless, it should be made impossible, in clear 

 cases, for those in whom tuberculosis is but a symptom 

 of complete degeneracy, to reproduce their infirmities. 

 Society, which decides to prolong the sufferer's life, 

 must at least protect itself against the imminent danger 

 that that life produces if allowed to perpetuate itself 



