446 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 351. 



about the country. Any kind of shelter 

 will answer their purpose and food is easily 

 obtained. Quite a number of the women re- 

 turn to the poor asylum to become mothers. 



In a certain county in the southern part 

 of the State is a family of sixteen persons^ 

 representing three generations. Twelve of 

 its members are the direct descendants of a 

 feeble-minded blind man and his feeble- 

 minded, partially blind, wife. The husband 

 and wife have been inmates of the poor 

 asylum off and on for thirty -five years. 

 Generally wintering in the institution, they 

 spend the summer roaming about the 

 country, living in the woods. In unfavor- 

 able weather they seek an old hut or rail 

 pen for shelter. They are said to make a 

 bed of leaves or straw and live on what 

 they can beg, supplemented by wild fruits 

 and nuts. They have a feeble-minded 

 daughter who is also partially blind. She 

 has been twice married and has borne two 

 feeble-minded daughters and three feeble- 

 minded sons. Another feeble-minded and 

 partially blind daughter has spent the 

 greater part of the last twenty-two years in 

 the poor asylum of an adjacent county and 

 has been the mother of four illegitimate 

 children. In this family of sixteen persons, 

 nine are feeble-minded (three of these being 

 also partially blind) and four are known 

 to be illegitimate. 



In an adjoining county are a husband and 

 wife, both degenerates, who make the poor 

 asylum their home in winter and live else- 

 where in summer. It is no uncommon 

 thing, in the spring following these wander- 

 ings, to have the family increased by a little 

 mite of humanity which does not seem as 

 if it could live. Many such children do 

 live, however. This woman has borne eleven 

 children and six of them are alive. One 

 summer the family lived in a little shed 

 built of short boards obtained from dry- 

 goods boxes, old tin and carpets, along the 

 railroad right-of-way, and obtained its liv- 



ing principally from begging. This family 

 has just made a beginning. How extensive 

 it may become depends upon what measures 

 are taken. It has probably been an ex- 

 pense of $1,000 per year to the county. 



Occasionally the children of normal par- 

 ents are feeble-minded. As Mr. Bicknell 

 has well said, there is no method of diverting 

 the course. While it is easily possible for 

 parents of normal faculties through dissi- 

 pation, vice or disease to produce feeble- 

 minded offspring, there seems to be no 

 method by which the tendency can be re- 

 versed and the degeneration, thus easily 

 accomplished, displaced by regeneration 

 and restoration in succeeding generations. 

 (Fifth Kept, of Indiana Board of State 

 Charities, 1894, page 51.) 



Usually, and in a large number of cases, 

 feeble-minded children are the offspring of 

 feeble-minded parents. It is equally true 

 that in the majority of cases the children of 

 feeble-minded parents are feeble-minded. 



From what has been said may be gath- 

 ered that the question before us presents 

 two notable evils : 



(a) The increasing number of illegiti- 

 mate children of feeble-minded parents. 



(6) The inheritance of feeble-minded- 

 ness. 



In the office of the Board of State Chari- 

 ties of Indiana there has been collected, 

 from every reliable source, during the past 

 twelve years, a great mass of material 

 relating to this group of defectives. It em- 

 braces much that has been gathered by the 

 Indiana School for Feeble-minded Youth 

 especially through the efforts of Mr. Alex- 

 ander Johnson, its able superintendent. 

 In addition, it contains such information as 

 could be obtained from the Poor Asylum 

 and Orphans' Home records and from the 

 township trustees who are ex-officio overseers 

 of the poor. I know of no such a series of 

 records nor one so conveniently arranged. 

 Mr. Ernest P. Bicknell, formerly the Secre- 



