Infancy and infant-rearing : an introductory manual / by John Benjamin Hellier.
- Hellier, John Benjamin.
- Date:
- 1895
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Infancy and infant-rearing : an introductory manual / by John Benjamin Hellier. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.
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![morbid changes may occur which profoundly affect the whole after life. If there be any prevention for such conditions it must be found by dealing with the parents and with the conditions under which they live.* If we were writing on the rearing and the race improvement of any class of animals, except human beings, we should begin with the fundamental principle of breeding only from healthy parents. Those who were specially likely to transmit disease, those, for instance, who were the sub- jects of tubercular affections, persons with marked tendency to insanity, habitual drunkards, &c., would not be allowed to beget children. We should thus employ artificial selection to improve the species. Nature's plan is to select the fittest to survive, and let the weakest go to the wall. But the healing art knows and can know nothing of the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the race. On the contrary, all life must be cherished, and the weakest must be cherished most carefully, f This is all the more reason why the medical profession should seek, by advice and instruction, to educate public opinion on the quesion of the responsibilities involved in the reproduction of disease. J It may not be out of place to remark here that mutilations and acquired deformities are not transmitted at birth. A lather who has lost a leg or an eye will produce children with normal eyes and feet. A mother's face may be seared by burns, or scarred with the pits of smallpox, but her infant will have a skin free from blemish. So the Chinese girl, after centuries of * For information on the subject of diseases of the unborn child, we refer the student to a recent work by Dr. Ballantyne, on the Diseases and Deforniiiies of the Fcetus. + There is a popular notion that a seriously deformed or monstrous new-born child may be smothered. We need hardly say that auy one privy to such an act would be guilty, probably of murder, certainly of man- slaughter. X For a valuable study of this and allied questions, see Professor Hay- craft's Milroy lectures on Darwinism and Race Progress, Lancet, February and March, 1894, from which we may quote the following sentences :— The State now insists upon a parental regard for the ex- ternal well-being of the cbild ; ma)' we not also insist that a parent is responsible for its innate well-being too. Once we have established such a point of view, once people have learned to look farther ahead and realise how much of the happiness of the future depends on their present action, I cannot but believe that this will affect their attitude in respect to marriage. Not only will the feeble and diseased realise the consequences of hereditary transmission and dread these consequences, but if they marry they will do so in face of public o])inion, perha]is of public rule. Having aroused the public conscience on this subject, the sickly will with difficulty find mates, the sexual selection (marriage) will have more largely than at present the quality of the progeny in view.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21439795_0052.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
