Part 5 (2/2)
”Rennert has attempted to express in statistical terms the varying degrees of gravity in the prognosis of cases in which at the moment of conception both parents are the subjects of lead poisoning, also when one alone is affected. The malign influence of lead is reflected upon the fetus and upon the continuation of the pregnancy 94 times out of 100 when both parents have been working in lead, 92 times when the mother alone is affected, and 63 times when it is the father alone who has worked in lead. Taking seven healthy women who were married to lead workers, and in whom there was a total of 32 pregnancies, Lewin (Berlin) tells us that the results were as follows: 11 miscarriages, one stillbirth, 8 children died within the first year after their birth, four in the second year, five in the third year and one subsequent to this, leaving only two children out of 32 pregnancies as likely to live to manhood. In cases where women have had a series of miscarriages so long as their husbands worked in lead, a change of industrial occupation on the part of the husband restores to the wives normal child-bearing powers.” The data of Constantin Paul, published as long ago as 1860, indicated that lead exercised an injurious effect through the male as well as the female parent. This sort of evidence is certainly weak, in that it fails to take into account the possible effects of environment; and one would do well to keep an open mind on the subject. In a recent series of careful experiments at the University of Wisconsin, Leon J. Cole has treated male rabbits with lead. He reports: ”The 'leaded' males have produced as many or more offspring than normal fathers, but their young have averaged smaller in size and are of lowered vitality, so that larger numbers of them die off at an early age than is the case with those from untreated fathers.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: EFFECT OF LEAD AS A ”RACIAL POISON”
FIG. 7.--That lead poisoning can affect the germ plasm of rabbits is indicated by experiments conducted by Leon J. Cole at the University of Wisconsin. With reference to the above ill.u.s.tration, Professor Cole writes: ”Each of the photographs shows two young from the same litter, in all cases the mother being a normal (nonpoisoned) albino. In each of the litters the white young is from an albino father which received the lead treatment, while the pigmented offspring is from a normal, h.o.m.ozygous, pigmented male. While these are, it is true, selected individuals, they represent what tend to be average, rather than extreme, conditions. The albino male was considerably larger than the pigmented male; nevertheless his young average distinctly smaller in size. Note also the brighter expression of the pigmented young.”]
There is, then, a suspicion that lead is a racial poison, but no evidence as yet as to whether the effect is permanent or in the nature of an induction.
This concludes the short list of substances for which there has been any plausible case made out, as racial poisons. Gonorrhea, malaria, a.r.s.enic, tobacco, and numerous other substances have been mentioned from time to time, and even ardently contended by propagandists to be racial poisons, but in the case of none of them, so far as we know, is there any evidence to support the claim. And as has been shown, in the case of the three chief so-called racial poisons, alcohol, syphilis and lead, the evidence is not great. We are thus in a position to state that, from the eugenists' point of view, the _origination_ of degeneracy, by some direct action of the germ-plasm, is a contingency that hardly needs to be reckoned with. Even in case the evidence were much stronger than it is, the damage done may only be a physiological or chemical induction, the effects of which will wear off in a few generations; rather than a radical change in the hereditary const.i.tuents of the germ-plasm. The germ-plasm is so carefully isolated and guarded that it is almost impossible to injure it, except by treatment so severe as to kill it altogether; and the degeneracy with which eugenists are called on to deal is a degeneracy which is running along from generation to generation and which, when once stopped by the cessation of reproduction, is in little danger of being originated anew through some racial poison.
Through these facts, the problem of race betterment is not only immensely simplified, but it is clearly shown to be more a matter for treatment by the biologist, acting through eugenics, than for the optimistic improver of the environment.
There is another way in which it is widely believed that some such result as a direct influence of the germ-plasm can be produced: that is through the imaginary process known as maternal impression, prenatal influence, etc. Belief in maternal impressions is no novelty. In the book of Genesis[24] Jacob is described as making use of it to get the better of his tricky father-in-law. Some animal breeders still profess faith in it as a part of their methods of breeding: if they want a black calf, for instance, they will keep a white cow in a black stall, and express perfect confidence that her offspring will resemble midnight darkness. It is easy to see that this method, if it ”works,” would be a potent instrument for eugenics. And it is being recommended for that reason. Says a recent writer, who professes on the cover of her book to give a ”complete and intelligent summary of all the principles of eugenics”:
”Too much emphasis can not be placed upon the necessity of young people making the proper choice of mates in marriage; yet if the production of superior children were dependent upon that one factor, the outlook would be most discouraging to prospective fathers and mothers, for weak traits of character are to be found in all. But when young people learn that by a conscious endeavor to train themselves, they are thereby training their unborn children, they can feel that there is some hope and joy in parentage; that it is something to which they can look forward with delight and even rapture; then they will be inspired to work hard to attain the best and highest that there is in them, leading the lives that will not only be a blessing to themselves, but to their succeeding generation.”
The author of this quotation has no difficulty in finding supporters.
Many physicians and surgeons, who are supposed to be trained in scientific methods of thought, will indorse what she says. The author of one of the most recent and in many respects admirable books on the care of babies, is almost contemptuous in her disdain for those who think otherwise:
”Science wrangles over the rival importance of heredity and environment, but we women know what effects prenatal influence works on children.”
”The woman who frets brings forth a nervous child. The woman who rebels generally bears a morbid child.” ”Self-control, cheerfulness and love for the little life breathing in unison with your own will practically insure you a child of normal physique and nerves.”
Such statements, backed up by a great array of writers and speakers whom the layman supposes to be scientific, and who think themselves scientific, can not fail to influence strongly an immense number of fathers and mothers. If they are truly scientific statements, their general acceptance must be a great good.
But think of the misplaced effort if these widespread statements are false!
Is there, or is there not, a short cut to race betterment? Everyone interested in the welfare of the race must feel the necessity of getting at the truth in the case; and the truth can be found only by rigorously scientific thought.
Let us turn to the observed facts. This sample is taken from the health department of a popular magazine, quite recently issued:
”Since birth my body has been covered with scales strikingly resembling the surface of a fish. My parents and I have expended considerable money on remedies and specialists without deriving any permanent benefit. I bathe my entire body with hot water daily, using the best quality of soap. The scales fall off continually. My brother, who is younger than myself, is afflicted with the same trouble, but in a lesser degree. My sister, the third member of the family, has been troubled only on the knees and abdomen. My mother has always been quite nervous and susceptible to any unusual mental impression. She believes that she marked me by craving fish, and preferring to clean them herself. During the prenatal life of my brother, she worried much lest she might mark him in the same way. In the case of my sister she tried to control her mind.”[25]
Another is taken from a little publication which is devoted to eugenics.[26] As a ”horrible example” the editor gives the case of Jesse Pomeroy, a murderer whom older readers will remember. His father, it appears, worked in a meat market. Before the birth of Jesse, his mother went daily to the shop to carry a luncheon to her husband, and her eyes naturally fell upon the b.l.o.o.d.y carcases hung about the walls.
Inevitably, the sight of such things would produce b.l.o.o.d.y thoughts in the mind of the unborn child!
These are extreme cases; we quote from a medieval medical writer another case that carries the principle to its logical conclusion: A woman saw a Negro,--at that time a rarity in Europe. She immediately had a sickening suspicion that her child would be born with a black skin. To obviate the danger, she had a happy inspiration--she hastened home and washed her body all over with warm water. When the child appeared, his skin was found to be normally white--except between the fingers and toes, where it was black. His mother had failed to wash herself thoroughly in those places!
Of course, few of the cases now credited are as gross as this, but the principle involved remains the same.
We will take a hypothetical case of a common sort for the sake of clearness: the mother receives a wound on the arm; when her child is born it is found to have a scar of some sort at about the same place on the corresponding arm. Few mothers would fail to see the result of a maternal impression here. But how could this mark have been transmitted?
This is not a question of the transmission of acquired characters through the germ-plasm, or anything of that sort, for the child was already formed when the mother was injured. One is obliged, therefore, to believe that the injury was in some way transmitted through the placenta, the only connection between the mother and the unborn child; and that it was then reproduced in some way in the child.
Here is a situation which, examined in the cold light of reason, puts a heavy enough strain on the credulity. Such an influence can reach the embryo only through the blood of the mother. Is it conceivable to any rational human being, that a scar, or what not, on the mother's body can be dissolved in her blood, pa.s.s through the placenta into the child's circulation, and then gather itself together into a definite scar on the infant's arm?
There is just as much reason to expect the child to grow to resemble the cow on whose milk it is fed after birth, as to expect it to grow to resemble its mother, because of prenatal influence, as the term is customarily used, for once development has begun, the child draws nothing more than nourishment from its mother.
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