284. FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
become perpetual is due in part to the charity that, in- 
aiding the poor, helps pauperism to mate with pauper- 
ism. It is the duty of true charity to 
: remove the causes of weakness and suf- 
through charity. 3 ‘i 
fering. It is equally her duty to see that 
weakness and suffering are not needlessly perpetuated. 
Startling results may follow from the selective breed- 
ing and preservation of paupers. In the valley of Aosta 
in northern Italy, and in other Alpine 
regions, is found the form of idiocy 
known as cretinism, What is the primi- 
tive cause of the cre/iz, and what is the causal connec- 
tion of cretinism with goitre, a disease of the thyroid 
glands which always accompanies it, I do not know. 
It suffices for our purpose ‘to notice that the severe 
military selection which ruled in Switzerland, Savoy, 
and Lombardy for many generations took the strongest 
and healthiest peasants to the wars, and left the idiot 
and goitrous to carry on the affairs of life at home. To 
bear a goitre was to, exempt from military services.. 
Thus in some regions the disease has been a local badge 
of honour. It is said that when iodine lozenges were 
given to the children of Savoy in the hope of prevent- 
ing the enlargement and degeneration of the thyroid 
gland, mothers would take this remedy away from the 
boys, preferring the goitre to military service. 
In the city.of Aosta the goitrous cretin has been for 
centuries an object of charity. The idiot has received 
generous support, while the poor farmer or labourer with 
brains and no goitre has had the severest of struggles. 
In the competition of life a premium has thus been 
placed on imbecility and disease. The cretéz has mated 
with the crediz, the goitre with the goitre, and charity 
and religion have presided over the union. The result 
is that idiocy is multiplied and intensified. The cretin 
Degeneration 
The cretins of 
Aosta. 
