The limits of eugenics / by Albert Galloway Keller.

  • Albert Galloway Keller
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The limits of eugenics / by Albert Galloway Keller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    grandchildren. Fear must be brought home; and to the indi¬ vidual. Here is where the doctor comes in; if any young man of reasonable sense knew what the doctor does about the mani¬ fold ills of, for example, sex-irregularities, fear would deter him from incurring many and serious dangers both for himself and for his descendants to come. One of the not unimpregnable limits of eugenics is the ignorance that nobody but the doctor can enlighten. Doctors need not name names, nor break pro¬ fessional reticence, but they should speak out. If certain of the counterselective factors are really injuring the race, their in¬ jurious action should be insisted upon and reiterated; if there is an error in these matters—if, for example, we are mistaken in listing certain items as counterselective—then they should be dropped off our list. The medical men must have their duty and opportunity to promote societal betterment ever before them. Medical schools should educate their students to a realizing sense of their social responsibilities, and fit them to see, beyond the patient in the chair, into the perspective of the millions of human beings struggling to live, and of the other millions yet unborn. Eugenics is a grand idea. The barriers that lie before its even partial realization are certainly high, and perhaps insuperable. But there is one human instrument available for the assault upon any human difficulty, and re¬ course to its use is never fruitless—for even though the par¬ ticular object fails it will be of use somewhere else—and that is education. The eugenics program at the very least opens up a series of questions on which light is needed; and this light can be given only by the enlightened, laborious, and fearless. Peo¬ ple need to be made afraid of what is unwholesome and disas¬ trous to society. The preacher used to inculcate this fear by various means now no longer available; his only effective suc¬ cessor in this societal function is the doctor. Let the doctor speak out what he knows! Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
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