248 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



So albinism varies much in degree and certain families are 

 recognized as containing partial albinos; others, nearly com- 

 plete albinos; still others, complete albinos. 



Pathologies describe some diseases as common, others 

 as rare; yet, within limits, this must depend on the geo- 

 graphical location of the author. At the east end of Long 

 Island Huntington's chorea is not a rare disease as it seems 

 to be in Eastern Massachusetts. Deaf mutism was found 

 in 4 per cent of the population of Chilmark, in 1880, and 

 the practitioner of that place would gain an impression of 

 its frequency which would differ from that of a hospital 

 surgeon in New York City. Hospital surgeons in great 

 cities believe they get a better average view because they 

 get random samples out of a great mixture; but in just so 

 far they lose sight of the essential feature of the specificity 

 of the different strains of human germ plasm and too often 

 gain the impression that the sporadic examples of a disease 

 that come to their hands prove the pm-ely accidental nature 

 of its incidence. The metropolitan hospital with its random 

 sampling is the last place to get a proper idea of the relation 

 of disease to germ plasm. It is the venerable country doc- 

 tor in a long settled and stable community who can tell 

 tales of hereditary tendencies. 



It was stated above that cooperation in putting on 

 record one's family history should be regarded as a patriotic 

 duty. I might go further and say that, just as the traits 

 of criminals and defectives go on public or semi-public rec- 

 ords, with even more reason a record should be kept of 

 our best families and of their traits. Enlightened com- 

 munities preserve records of births, marriages and deaths 

 and of various business transactions, especially in land. 

 It is not less important to keep a record of innate capacities 

 and valuable traits. For it is not too much to say that the 

 future of our nation depends on the perpetuation by repro- 



