An examination of some recent studies of the inheritance factor in insanity / by David Heron.

  • Heron, David
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An examination of some recent studies of the inheritance factor in insanity / by David Heron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    data by men who have clearly had no adequate training in statistical science. The craniologist, the anthropologist, even the biological student of heredity and evolu- tion are recognising that a statistical training is needful for the true interpretation of many of the facts in their special fields of research. The physiologist still appears to believe that he can deal with the average effects of diverse dietaries or the pathologist with the “ mass-phenomena ” of the hereditary factor in insanity without any training in statistical method. A physicist might just as logically assume that without mathematical training he could give an adequate mathe- matical account of a physical phenomenon, or a cosmic theorist suppose that he was effectively furnished for astronomical research by the perusal of a popular primer on the stars! The statistical calculus cannot be mastered by any easier road than the differential calculus, or, to put a more apt illustration, statistical training is as needful a preliminary to the handling of statistics, as time spent in a physiological laboratory to the effective handling of tissues. In twenty years it will be unnecessary to insist on these points, they will be universally recognised in the courts of science; but at present it is not only necessary to reiterate unpleasant truths, but to emphasise their validity by illustrations which bring home forcibly to scientist and layman alike the danger of amateur statistical handling. To state that a man is in error is not sufficient, if he continues time after time to repeat his assertions, apparently under the belief that incessant repetition will convince the world of the value of his theories. In the case of the inheritance factor in insanity we are not dealing with any purely academic question of science. We are up against one of the most difficult problems of modern life, where true advice is of urgent importance to the nation as well as to the individual. It is not only the medical man but the layman who seeks guidance in the question of the marriage of members of insane stocks, and a laboratory like the Galton Laboratory knows how often advice on such points is sought. It is disheartening when help is rendered to the seeker to be faced with the criticism: “ But Professor says I may marry if I take a wife of sound stock,” or “ Dr recommends marriage, although my father was insane, because I am over twenty-five and still sane myself.” When teaching of this kind, arising solely from false interpretation of defective data, is spread widecast in a dozen different papers or journals, it is not sufficient to issue a brief statement of its futility. It is needful to give it the coup de grace by a more lengthy criticism of its fallacies and their illustration in a form more likely to impress the imagination. The attempt is made in this paper to deal with only one of the authors, who have contributed fallacious eugenic rules to those seeking knowledge on the influence of the hereditary factor in insanity. In a long series of papers Dr F. W. Mott, Pathologist to the London County Asylums, has stated that when the children of insane parents become insane, they do so at a much earlier age than did their parents, and on the basis of this assertion he has drawn some very sweeping conclusions for practical conduct. Thus in the Biometrika x 46
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