February 27, 1908J 



NA TURE 



395 



real evidence that this is tlic case, as many instances 

 for and against the contention can be given. Whether 

 the child of elderly parents is healthy or not depends 

 not so much upon the age as upon the health of the 

 parents; for a man with, say, Bright's disease — the 

 prevalent ailment of men over sixty — will certainly not 

 beget a healthy offspring. It would seem, however, 

 from a general study of constitutional defects which 

 are inherited, that the elder members of the family are 

 more liable to suffer than the younger. In the case of 

 tuberculous families, as well as with stocks giving no 

 parental tuberculous history, the elder offspring, 

 especially the first and second, appear subject to tuber- 

 culosis at a very much higher rate than the younger 

 members. 



This observation is of especial interest when the 

 modern notion of the limitation of families is con- 

 sidered. There are few " younger members " to the 

 small and limited families of to-day. The two or 

 three children born to a couple of parents would repre- 

 sent the elder branches only of the " old-fashioned 

 familv " of a dozen of some fifty years ago. We have 

 just seen that Prof. Pearson declares that the first 

 and second child are endowed with all forms of path- 

 ological heritage, and if there are only two children 

 in die family," the limited family of the present day 

 is producing a community of persons highly endowed 

 with a pathological heritage, uncorrected in its 

 national deteriorating effect had there been later 

 children of the marriage — that is, children less likely 

 to have inherited in a marked manner the pathological 

 tissues or diathesis of their parents. 



If we are to believe the above statement, and there 

 is no evidence against its being logically acceptable, 

 we are brought face to face with the question of the 

 benefit or otherwise of the law of primogeniture which 

 so largely obtains all the world over. From a racial 

 standpoint the first and second children, as we have 

 seen above, are the worst members of the family to 

 beget a stock free from pathological taints ; yet it is 

 to the eldest son that the preservation of the family, 

 and its possessions, its titles, or its wealth, is 

 <^ntrusted. To push this point to its seemingly logical 

 conclusion, it would come about that the eldest son 

 of one familv niarr\ing the eldest daughter of another 

 familv would in time lead to an effete progeny and 

 the extinction of the power of rearing children. As 

 a prophvlactic agency in this scheme of pathologic 

 inheritance, it would appear essential, to correct the 

 deteriorating effects of intermarriage between elder 

 members of different families, that the eldest child of 

 one family should marry with a younger child of 

 another family. 



The limitation of families to one or two children 

 is therefore a highly detrimental factor in national 

 eugenics, for not onlv is there no allowance for 

 what appears to be the inevitable waste attaching to 

 child life, but the progeny, if thus produced only 

 during the earlv vears of married life, is calculated 

 to add in time more affected individuals to the com- 

 munity, seeing it is the first-born children especially 

 that inherit familv traits of physique and diathesis. 



The predominance of race depends on the preserv- 

 ation of the mentallv and physically fitter stocks. In 

 the stnjggle for existence amongst primitive peoples 

 this is " naturallv " provided for by the exigencies of 

 life, but' amongst a highlv civilised race, such as our 

 own, th^ fitter stocks appear likely to be weakened 

 " bv the lessened intensitv of the intraracial struggle 

 and the differential limitation of the family." 



It is scarcely necessarv to state that Prof. Pearson 



has handled this subject, as he handles all the 



problem.^ he deals with, in a manner at once logical, 



iinbiase(3 and rigidly scientific. We are willing to 



XO. 2000, VOL. 'J'j'\ 



accept Prof. Pearson's conclusions from the basis he 

 starts from ; but until the basis is widened a hundred 

 fold it would be rash to formulate definite and incon- 

 trovertible deductions in regard to the effects of the 

 inheritance of any pathologic diathesis for any given 

 ailment. 



SIR RICHARD STRACHEY. G.C.S.I., F.R.S. 



ON Wednesday, February 12, there passed away, 

 at the advanced age of upwards of ninety years, 

 a distinguished son of a distinguished .Anglo-Indian 

 family, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Strachey, 

 R.E., G.C.S.I., LL.D., F.R.S. To give any adequate 

 impression of a career which extended from 1836, 

 when Richard Strachey left Addiscombe to join the 

 corps of engineers of the East India Company, to 

 1907, when he retired from the chairmanship of the 

 East Indian Railway Company, would be in any case 

 a difficult task, and when, as in this case, a life of 

 nearly ninety-one years is more remarkable for the 

 versatile activity of the spirit that animated it than 

 for its length the task becomes insuperable. 



He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1S54 for scientific work in botany, geology and 

 physical geography, carried out wliile he was 

 stationed at Nani Tal, in the Kumaon Himalayas, 

 whither he was transferred from engineering work in 

 connection with the Ganges canal on account of re- 

 peated attacks of fever. In 1897, the year in which 

 he was appointed Knight Grand Commander of the 

 Star of India, a Royal medal was conferred upon him 

 for his investigations in physical and botanical geo- 

 graphy and meteorology. " Two of the most recent 

 of these," quoting from the award, "are recorded in 

 his report, published in 18S8, on the barometrical dis- 

 turbances and sounds produced by the eruption of 

 Krakatoa and in his paper in the Pliil. Trans, of 1893, 

 entitled ' Harmonic Analysis of Hourly Observations 

 of the Temperature and Pressure at British Observa- 

 tories.' These, while important in themselves, are but 

 the last of a long series of valuable memoirs. He was 

 the first to treat scientifically of the physical and 

 botanical geography, geology, and meteorology of 

 the Western Himalaya and Tibet. He also first 

 observed the occurrence of a regular series of fossil- 

 iferous rocks, from the Silurian upwards to the north 

 of the great snowy axis of the Himalaya. His 

 numerous oapers on these subjects, dating from the 

 year 1S47, are published in the Journals of the Royal 

 Asiatic, Geological, and Royal Geographical .Societies' 

 Proceedings, and in the reports of the British 

 .Association. "' 



In 1873 he had returned home and was appointed 

 a member of the meteorological committee of the 

 Roval Society which controlled the Meteorological 

 Office, established in 1867 ; he was a member of Sir 

 William Stirling Maxwell's committee wliich revised 

 the constitution of the governing body of the office, 

 and was a member of the council which replaced the 

 committee in 1S76. After a further period of absence 

 in India on special duty, he resumed his place on the 

 council; in 1883, upon the death of Prof. H. J. S. 

 Smith, he was appointed chairman and filled the 

 office for twenty-two 3'ears. He was president of the 

 Roval Geographical Society from 1887 to 1889. He 

 received the Symons medal of the Royal Meteor- 

 ological .Society in 1906. 



His scientific activity, although closely interwoven 

 with the rest of his work, was only a part of his life. 

 He won distinction as an engineer in the conduct of 

 irrigation works and as a soldier in the Sutlej cam- 

 paign. His greatest claim to remembrance is based 

 upon his achievements as head of the Indian Public 



