lo A REPLY TO CRITICISMS OF THE 



who are healthier ought not to die more ' is pure dogma 

 until we have considered whether the two sets of children 

 have been submitted to the same degree of stress in the 

 environment. We actually used the greater degree of stress 

 in the environment to account for the higher death-rate 

 accompanied by equal, if not greater health among the 

 surviving children of the alcoholic. 



Now Sir Victor Horsley and Miss Sturge {B.M.J., p. 76) 

 write as follows : 



' In their rcp7'inted'^ memoir they take up this [V. H.'s] 

 objection . . . and say that there is no a priori basis for 

 saying that healthier '^surviving'' children ought not to die 

 more than less healthy children. To support this they have 

 inserted the word '' sitrvivijig'' . . . ' 



Now what can any reader derive from such a sentence? 

 Only that the word 'surviving' was inserted by us after 

 reading Sir Victor's criticisms ! Yet here are the actual 

 words of the first edition of our paper : 



' Further the higher death-rate of the children of alcoholic 

 parents probably leaves the fitter to survive' (p. 31). 



The text of the memoir has not been altered ; the only 

 addition is a footnote to the word ' survive ', saying that we 

 see no reason why a higher death-rate among children of 

 the alcoholic parents is incompatible with better health in 

 their surviving children. Naturally we could only measure 

 the health in the surviving children of school age, and it is 

 these survivors who are of the first importance from the 

 eugenic standpoint. There was no insertion whatever in 

 our second edition of the survival notion ; it was clearly 

 stated for all to read in the first edition. 



Now the fact I want to emphasize is this : that Sir Victor 



1 Italics are mine. 



