THE CAVENDISH LECTURE 9 



the data in a form suitable for analysis. Is that special training 

 available, is that staff of practical computers forthcoming in the 

 ofifice of any single medical officer of health in this country ? 

 I venture to think it is not, and will not be for many years to 

 come. 



Medical men in public service, whether as officers of health, 

 school officers, or as superintendants of asylums, sanatoria and 

 reformatories, have access to immense masses of data bearing on 

 medico-social problems, and schedule it in increasing quantities. 

 Are these schedules to be wasted, to be stacked and ultimately 

 burned for want of space, or shall they form archives from whence 

 knowledge as to the factors which improve or impair national 

 well-being may be extracted ? 



To anyone who hopes for human progress — -not by arbitrary 

 guesswork — but by the gradual unravelling of truth there can be 

 but one answer to that question. Many medical officers of health 

 and school medical officers have answered it already by placing 

 their data unreservedly at the disposal of professional statisticians. 

 The Eugenics Laboratory possesses thousands of schedules 

 bearing on the health of children, the effect of the employment of 

 mothers, the family histories of imbeciles, the action of tuberculin, 

 and many other problems. We have the material to answer — 

 in numerous cases already have the answers to — various medico- 

 social problems. Now I would ask you whether it is better that 

 this material should perish, or that it should pass through the hands 

 of laymen who at least have the requisite statistical training to 

 analyse it ? 



Remember the material does perish. I can give you an illus- 

 tration in point. We were permitted access to the records of a 

 society which looks after young servants at a critical portion of 

 their career. A certain proportion of these girls are from 

 industrial schools, and a certain number of these industrial school 

 recruits are failures. Why do some fail and some succeed ? 

 Now no child passes into an industrial school without a most 

 elaborate report on its home environment, on the habits of its 

 parents, and on their occupations and wages. 



It is a police report which goes to the magistrate, and is 

 ultimately filed at the industrial school or by the educational 

 authority. The mental and physical history of the child in the 

 school is also recorded by teacher and medical officer. It seemed 

 possible on the basis of such data to investigate the type of girls 



