64 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
duction of mental defect as the researches of Fraser and Watson 
indicate, it would necessitate considerable modification of the 
views that have been expressed regarding the so-called Mendelian 
transmission of epilepsy and feeble-mindedness. Very many of 
the charts picturing such inheritance are quite consistent with 
the hypothesis that we are dealing with the transmission of an 
infection which produces effects of various degrees of severity. 
Where both parents are infected we should expect that the chil- 
dren would be severely afflicted. The matings of normal and 
defective, however, do not turn out quite as we should expect on 
the theory of infection. It is highly desirable that future studies 
of the inheritance of mental defect may make use of thorough 
tests to eliminate the possibly very large factor of syphilis. This 
has not been done in any of the work published by the Eugenics 
Record Office, and it remains to be seen what basis will be left for 
the various laws that have been laid down for the inheritance of 
mental defect when this precaution has been taken. 
THE NOTION OF DEGENERACY 
Since Morel published his celebrated treatise on Degeneracy in 
1857, it has been a prevalent idea that many forms of defect and 
disorder are not transmitted as such, but may give place in the 
descendants to abnormalities of the most varied kind. What is 
transmitted is held to be a degenerate constitution which may be 
manifested in diverse ways according to circumstances. ‘‘He- 
redity,” says Morel, “‘does not mean the very disorders of the 
parents transmitted to the children with the identical mental and 
physical symptoms observed in the progenitors. It means trans- 
mission of organic dispositions from parents to children. Alien- 
ists have, perhaps, more frequent occasion than others for ob- 
serving not merely this heredity transmission, but likewise 
various transformations which occur in the descendants. They 
are aware that simple neuropathy (nervous tendency) of the 
parents may produce in the children an organic disposition result- 
ing in mania or melancholia, nervous affections which in turn may 
