WHEN DEVELOPMENT GOES WRONG 135 
trip through any of our prisons by one who knows what to look 
for and is quick to recognize signs of arrested development will 
convince him that one of the problems of civilization is to deal 
with members of our own race who are not sufficiently developed 
‘to exist under civilized conditions except as a constant menace 
to society. When these facts are more generally realized we 
shall free ourselves of much maudlin sentiment and be on the 
road to solving this most perplexing and awful problem, — the 
problem of the human degenerate.! 
Overdevelopment of a single part. Just as a part may fail 
to develop without destroying the individual,? so also can one 
or more parts attain extreme development, while most or all of 
the others may remain normal. A little of this commonly occurs 
among giants, which are, in man, generally disproportionally 
developed in the thighs; indeed, most extremely tall people 
get their height at this point. 
Often the liver will begin growing and attain enormous size 
(hypertrophy) ; or if one kidney is removed, the other may be- 
come greatly enlarged through doing the work of both. 
If the spleen is removed, the lymphatic glands of other parts 
of the body become greatly enlarged (compensating hypertrophy), 
a phenomenon akin to the sharpened hearing of blind people, 
but only partially comparable from the fact that practice and 
concentration of attention help to explain the skillful use of 
hearing by the blind. 
1 The extent to which the human animal may be destitute of one or more of 
our higher faculties can be illustrated only by appealing to the fact that as 
individuals are minus legs, arms, fingers, hands, ears, eyes, etc., so they can 
be and are destitute of many of the mental faculties necessary to an under- 
standing and appreciation of the main facts and principles on which civilized 
society exists. Such individuals cannot live at large except as a constant 
menace. They should therefore, upon committing crime, be permanently with- 
drawn from society. d 
2 Of course, if arrested development occurs in any vital part, death en- 
sues. One of the most common cases of infant mortality is the failure of 
the heart to complete its development and therefore to properly circulate 
the blood, giving rise to the disease known as “blue baby,” from the blue or 
nonaérated blood. 
