236 CORRADO GESTI 



clared fit to serve, distinguishing two classes: those who actually served, 

 and those who were exempted. It has been found that those who serve 

 their time in the army marry later than those who, although fit, are wholly 

 or partly exempted. The former, however, marry more frequently, as if 

 to have served in the army constituted grounds for preference in the matri- 

 monial selection. Up to a certain age, which, according to the results of 

 the various researches, varies from twenty-five to forty years, the average 

 number of living children is, for those who have served, inferior to that of 

 the children of the exempted conscripts, which may be accounted for by the 

 shorter duration of the formers' marriages. Once past forty years of age, 

 instead, if not before, those who have served in the army have an average 

 number of living children superior to that of those fit for service but exempted. 

 Although they married later, those who served seem to have more prolific 

 marriages, as if the preference they enjoy in the matrimonial selection per- 

 mitted them to marry younger women, or, regardless of age, healthier and 

 sturdier, and, consequently, more prolific ones, As concerns Italy, therefore, 

 the conclusion seems warranted that military service favors, or at least 

 does not interfere with, the reproductiveness of those who undergo it as 

 compared with those equally fit for service who are totally or partly exempted 

 from it. 



For Germany, Dr. Burgdorfer, while unable for lack of data to make analo- 

 gous researches, has given figures and considerations which confirm such 

 results. 



He, on the other hand, calls attention to some indirect influences of the 

 system of general conscription: first, the diffusion of city culture and cus- 

 toms among country people and the stimulus on the latter to move into the 

 city, a fact which may cause, together with some advantages, many disad- 

 vantages from a eugenic standpoint; secondly, an advantage for those who 

 serve, both from the point of view of health and that of social and cultural 

 education, an advantage, concerning which it is impossible, however, to say 

 whether and to what extent it has any hereditary character. With refer- 

 ence particularly to the effects of military conscription on the diffusion of 

 venereal diseases, I have already had occasion to point out, as regards Italy, 

 that, granted the existence of an unfavorable influence, it does not prove to 

 be such as to diminish the average reproductivity of those who have served in 

 the army as compared with those who, though fit to serve, did not do so. 

 This and the other indirect influences of the military organization in peace 

 time, it is difficult to estimate statistically. We may, however, examine 

 whether the populations which have adopted the system of general conscrip- 

 tion show, as compared with those that follow the system of voluntary con- 



