Eugenics / by Edgar Schuster.

  • Schuster, Edgar.
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: Eugenics / by Edgar Schuster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EUGENICS 243 epilepsy or a tendency to insanity might well be insisted on, and even in cases where both parties agreed to the marriage in spite of such defects they would be warned to take advice concerning the desirability of having children. Sterilisation and Institutional Care By sterilisation is meant the removal of power of reproduction. This may be accom¬ plished by simple operations, which do not interfere with normal life in any way. In man they are attended by no sort of danger, but some risk is run in the case of women. It would be out of place here to discuss the nature of these operations; it ìb sufficient to point out that castration is not among them. Laws permitting or enforcing sterilisation in certain cases have been passed in several States of the American Union, but up till quite recently it has been difficult to obtain information as to how they were working. The difficulty has now been removed by the action of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeders* Association in appointing a com¬ mittee ' To study and report on the best practical means for cutting off the defective germplasm in the human population.* Though the wording of the terms of reference may raise a smile, by the naïve way in which a