Eugenics in race and state.

  • International Congress of Eugenics
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Eugenics in race and state. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    416/534 (page 400)
    400 W. с. BILLINGS (2) AU defective and diseased conditions of a more or less permanent character tending to call for institutional care and treatment. (3) All conditions not incompatible with traveling but that need or are likely to need medical treatment, whether for a short or more or less protracted period. (4) All cases of diseased, deformed or crippled children who will require unusual care during childhood, and who are likely to be physically defective if they live to maturity. The following are only mentioned as type illustrations, it being manifestly impossible to describe in any formulated regulation for the enforcement of the law every condition which might tend to impair a person's incapacity to earn a living. Among the more frequently occurring of these conditions, are hernia, heart disease, states of permanently defective nutrition and of marked defective skeletal and muscular development, chronic arthritis and myositis, nervous affections, malignant new growths, deformities, senility, varicose veins, defective vision, chronic malaria, uncinariasis, pellagra, beri-beri, cutaneous affections, the eruptive fevers and the anaemias. Class С includes defective or diseased conditions which do not present, in the opinion of the medical officer, the requirements for certification under Classes A or B, but of which some record should be made for possible further reference. Classes A and В differ very materially in the way in which, under the law, they are handled by the Immigration authorities. Class A is mandatorily excludable and, unless specific authority is issued by the Secretary of Labor, of which Department the Immigration Service is a part, that the alien be landed for treatment until cured, or where for hum.ani- tarian reasons certain consideration is show^n the particular individual, persons falling within this class are deported to the country whence they came. Class В represents cases which are individual in their handling; that is, each case, with the various features concerned therewith, is, after being certified by the medical officers, considered individually by a group of immigration inspectors designated as a board of special inquiry. As the class concerns primarily only such conditions as influence ability to earn a living, it is quite possible that with the same disease certain financial, social or occupational factors may influence the final question as to whether one particular alien would be able to be self-supporting and another would not. To illustrate, it is apparent that a book-keeper, not being subjected to strenuous physical exercise and perhaps having a moderate amount of money at his disposal, will not be nearly as apt to be physically incapacitated with heart disease as would a laborer who is entirely dependent upon arduous physical work for his support. It is the function of the board of special