ARTIFICIAL PROLONGATION OP LIFE 347 



been artificially prolonged, they have been permitted to reach 

 maturity and to reproduce, to the great detriment of the race as 

 a whole. But the father of the family, the man who is already 

 the parent of a new generation, has suffered for what the child 

 has benefited ; and the mortality of what we may call, in physio- 

 logical language, the reproductive classes has been increased by 

 the modern care for the child. 



If we consider for a moment what this means, we find that the 

 tuberculously disposed organism has his or her life artificially 

 preserved, and is permitted to reproduce, thus perpetuating the 

 morbid constitution ; and the second generation, similarly pro- 

 tected against the natural consequences of this inherited morbid 

 constitution, is permitted once more to multiply, and so forth. 

 It is evident that under such a system the percentage of those 

 who die in the best years of manhood will continuously increase, 

 as fast as the number of those who die in early childhood de- 

 creases. It is often claimed that this better protection of child- 

 hood is a benefit for the race ; but we forget that a benefit can 

 only be admitted if the mortality from tuberculosis at all ages is 

 diminishing. At present this is not the case ; and we are pro- 

 tecting childhood at the expense of the race ; we are permitting 

 weaklings to prolong artificially a useless existence, and to pro- 

 duce fresh generations of weakhngs. A reference to the figures 

 on p. 348 will make this clear to us. 



If we glance at these two figures, it is obvious that it is to the 

 interest of the race that the condition of affairs be such that 

 young children of weak or diseased constitution, born of diseased 

 parents, should be eliminated in early age — in other words, that 

 Fig. 7 should represent the general rule. The more per- 

 sons of forty-five — that is to say, of mature age — who are 

 eliminated, the more chance is there that, previous to their 

 elimination, they will have bequeathed their debility, if not 

 their disease, to an enfeebled progeny. In other words, if the 

 state of things represented by Fig. 8 be the general rule, there 



