366 BERNARD MALLET 



to the extent to which the families which procreate the different sub-groups 

 are appreciably below the average. But the existence of such a group may 

 be taken as established; and the fact that high grade mental defectives and 

 the classes which produce them are incapable of regulating the birth of their 

 children, and are practically untouched by the spread of contraceptive 

 knowledge, has brought the question, how to restrict the output of children 

 from this group, both in the interests of its members and of society at large, 

 into special prominence. For recent authoritative enquiries have placed 

 the number of certifiable mental defectives in England and Wales, not in- 

 cluding the insane, at 300,000, and demonstrated that the incidence of men- 

 tal defect has substantially increased in the last twenty years, and is still 

 increasing. 



Faced with this situation, and with the apparent impossibility of provid- 

 ing sufficient institutional accommodation for mental defectives — such 

 accommodation under the Mental Deficiency act provides at present for 

 only one out of twelve mental defectives — the public is now ready to give 

 impartial consideration to alternative methods of limiting the increase of 

 the numbers of this subnormal group. Leaving aside segregation in insti- 

 tutions to which allusion has been made, and voluntary abstinence from 

 sexual intercourse which is impracticable, these methods include abortion, 

 legal prohibition of marriage, contraception and sterilization. 



As regards abortion, it is stated that the adoption of this practice in Russia 

 has resulted in a reduction in female mortality and morbidity, but until fur- 

 ther data are available from that country or elsewhere, the Eugenics Society 

 is not likely to make any pronouncement on this question. 



Legal prohibition of marriage has been officially advocated in this country 

 as a means, not only of retaining control of mental defectives under guard- 

 ianship and supervision, but also as a means of checking their fertility. But 

 it is obviously inapplicable to any but mental defectives, and among other 

 objections to such measures it may be supposed that it is ineffective as a 

 check upon fertility as it could not prevent illegitimate births, and would 

 encourage promiscuity in sexual intercourse. We then come to contracep- 

 tion. The serious fall in the birth rate, due undoubtedly to the spread of 

 the knowledge of contraceptive devices, which has occurred in the last fifty 

 years, is perhaps the most momentous social and biological phenomenon of 

 our time; and it is impossible to contemplate without alarm the effect of its 

 probable future development on the future of the race. But whatever ob- 

 jection may be felt to birth control on religious and social grounds, it cannot 

 but be deplored that, from the nature of the case, the classes in which the 

 use of contraceptive methods would be eminently desirable are incapable of 



