Chapter IX: Preface (9)

The “smell” which old writers had noticed and Schönbein had named was thus actually obtained as a distinct blue liquid. It is this which, though present only in minute quantities, gives special oxydising activity to fresh air. When pure, or present even to the small extent of 4 per cent. in air, ozone is a destructive agent, a sort of extra-quality oxygen of triple instead of double power. Indiarubber is rotted and destroyed by it in a few minutes—a sort of combustion or quick oxydation taking place—and it is, of course, dangerous to the softer parts of the human body, such as the air passages and lungs and the eyes—when present in more than a minimal proportion. I believe that no one has yet determined exactly how great a percentage of ozone can be tolerated by a human being in the air taken into the lungs. In ordinary fresh country or sea-coast air only one part by measure in 700,000 has been found to be ozone, that is, 1/7000 per cent. But it is quite likely that much more is occasionally present, since it is very difficult to arrange a satisfactory examination of the air of any locality so as to determine how much ozone it contains. It is said that at higher levels the atmosphere contains more ozone than it does at lower levels.

It is not to be wondered at that ozone should thus have attracted general attention and interest as the distinctive and specially active agent present in the pure air of the sea-coast and the mountain-top. People not infrequently, on arriving at the seaside, sniff up the odours of decomposing seaweed (containing a little iodine), and think they are smelling the “ozone.” It is doubtful whether enough ozone is ever present in the atmosphere under simple natural conditions to affect even a highly-sensitive nose. But it is easy to produce enough by passing air over a silent electrical discharge to fill a large room with its peculiar smell. Whether it really is of benefit to the human being who inhales a properly limited percentage of it seems not to have been clearly decided by experiment, although both in London and the United States of America there are enterprising medical men who are convinced of its value and are using it. It would certainly seem that if the peculiar benefit which is often derived from sea air or from mountain air is due to the presence of this extra oxygen in such air, then nothing can be simpler or more rational than to introduce the proper and useful percentage of ozone into the air of specially-arranged chambers in London and other large towns, so that we can visit or even inhabit them and breathe ozonised air at will without going on a journey for it.

But it is a remarkable fact that, as with various natural so-called “mineral waters,” so with various “airs” which people find beneficial—no one has yet clearly and decisively shown, in the first place, whether they exert any chemical effect of a special kind on the people who seem to benefit by drinking the one or breathing the other; still less has any one shown what is the particular chemical ingredient of the air or of the water of any given resort which exerts the beneficial effect attributed to that air or that water.

The air in different localities differs most obviously and importantly in four particulars, namely, as to whether it is still or windy, whether it is cool or hot relatively to the local surface, whether it is heavy or rarefied, whether it is dry or saturated with moisture. It is also an important fact that the atmosphere consists of layers and currents differing in these qualities, and that the higher layers can be reached by ascending to high-lying lands. At the same time it seems that in a flat country the ascent of a comparatively low hill brings you into a layer or “stratum” of air differing more from that of the plain or valley than would be the case were you to ascend to the same height in a mountainous region. The seaside and the mountain may owe the beneficial character of their air to some of the varying qualities noted above. Chemical differences may or may not be important, and seem hardly to have been as yet brought within the range of accurate knowledge. Ozone may be more or less present, so may perfumes and volatile oils, such as are given off by pine trees, and there may be more or less minute quantities of carbonic acid and of sulphurous acid, and still minuter quantities of the newly-discovered gases—argon and helium—which, for all we know, may have some effect on the human body. There seems to be a great field open for accurate investigations in regard to the action upon human health of all these varying conditions of the air. In the meantime, we proceed by guesswork, and are influenced by tradition and beliefs which are based on a sort of experience, but are of a very vague and unsatisfactory description.

The case is much the same with regard to the natural waters of celebrated resorts. So far as their chemical composition is known, they can be manufactured and applied for drinking or bathing anywhere. But minute quantities of certain gases and other elements may be present in these natural waters and have escaped until now the observation of the chemist, and it is possible, though not demonstrated, that these rare chemical constituents may have some action on those who drink or bathe in the water. Ever since the time of the Romans natural mineral waters have been sought, and the springs which discharge them have been frequented, not because their chemical composition was known, but because experience seemed to show that they produced a beneficial result. It can hardly be doubted that the baths and springs frequented at the present day are not so much themselves the cause of the benefit to the cure-seekers as are the change of scene and diet, and the repose and regular life willingly accepted by those who travel so far to reach these springs.

With regard to ozone, there remains something more to be said, namely, in regard to its application, in a far less diluted form than is possible when it is taken into the lungs, to the destruction of putrefying organic matter and putrefactive and disease-producing bacteria. It is now some five or six years since air containing a high percentage of ozone—produced by the action of the electric discharge—was used for the purification of the water-supply of large towns. It is a fact that river water into which such ozone containing air is pumped becomes pure in the highest degree, in consequence of the destruction by the ozone’s oxydising action, both of the bacterial germs always present in vast numbers in river water and of the organic matter on which the bacteria depend. This application of ozone is in use in several large towns for the purification of drinking-water, for which purpose it has very great advantages. It has also been successfully used by Dr. Allen, the director of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, for keeping the water of the marine aquarium there in a state of purity and well charged with oxygen gas. A similar use has been made of oxygen containing a considerable percentage of ozone by enterprising surgeons for the cleansing of ulcer and abscess. It is clear that such a gas may present mechanical advantages over any liquid application.

Ozone is not, apparently, in favour or fashion with the general body of medical practitioners at the present day, but possibly further examination and determination of its physiological properties may lead to its receiving more attention in medicine. Already the peroxide of hydrogen—which is more or less correctly described as “ozonised water,” and is used (under the name “Auricomous hair-wash”) to change dark hair by its oxydising action to a golden tint—is used by surgeons for washing out purulent wounds and abscess. Those who use the gas itself only go a step further. Some day we may see a more general use of ozone; on the other hand, it remains to be seen by direct and accurate experiment whether its properties are as valuable to man as we may hope they will prove to be.

XXVII

OXYGEN GAS FOR ATHLETES AND OTHERS

Since the preceding chapter on ozone was written I have learned that this peculiar triple-condensed variety of oxygen (it is called by chemists “O_{3}” whereas ordinary oxygen is “O_{2}”) is now being most successfully applied to the purification of the water-supply of several large cities. A notable case is that of the great winter resort, Nice. Ozone gas is one of the most effective destroyers of organic impurity known; it destroys both bacterial germs and the putrescible impurities of water completely, and is itself converted in the process into harmless health-giving oxygen, whilst the water is rendered absolutely free of all germs. It is readily manufactured by treating oxygen with the electric discharge, and is produced at a cost which renders its use in water-purification an economical and financially satisfactory method. The use of ozone gas as a medicinal application to cavities in the living body in which disease-producing bacteria are lodged is making progress. It has to be administered with great care by a medical expert, and though there has been delay and opposition on account of the novelty of the treatment, there are signs that ozone will become established as a valuable therapeutic agent. It is a singular fact that so little has been done of late by scientific observers either as to the presence of ozone in the atmosphere or as to the action of ozone on the healthy animal body when present in minute quantity in the air taken into the lungs. The general opinion appears to be that it is either altogether absent from the atmosphere or present only in quantity so minute as to be negligible from the point of view of the physiologist except in very high mountain regions, and there the exact quantity remains undetermined. The only experiments in the last ten years on the subject of its action on animals are some which led the inquirers to the conclusion that constant exposure (in a closed chamber) to an atmosphere containing 4 per cent. of ozone caused death after five or six days by an inflammation of the lungs. Clearly it is desirable that further investigation on this subject by competent authorities should be made, and the effect of smaller quantities of ozone in the air respired, whether continuously or at intervals, should be ascertained.

The action of ordinary oxygen gas is a separate matter. The atmosphere which we breathe consists of one part by volume of this gas and of four parts of nitrogen gas. It is the oxygen which is necessary to us and to all animals, and the nitrogen is merely an inert diluting accompaniment of the essential oxygen gas. It is, of course, easy to increase or to diminish the proportion of oxygen in the air breathed accordingly as one introduces additional pure oxygen or, on the other hand, diluting nitrogen into a collapsible bag or sac from which one continuously draws breath. Such a bag can be connected by a tube to a helmet or mask enveloping the head. The expired air is discharged by a specially provided passage. It used to be thought that it was dangerous to breathe pure undiluted oxygen, although the proportion of oxygen to nitrogen in the air taken into the lungs might be increased to as much as a half without injury, and, indeed, with great benefit in some serious conditions of collapse. Dr. Leonard Hill, F.R.S., of the London Hospital Medical College, has, however, recently shown that oxygen gas, of 97 per cent. purity, may be breathed continuously for as much as two hours without any ill-effects or sense of inconvenience. Contrary to what has been stated, it is neither exciting nor unpleasant. He has made the experiment on himself and on some of his assistants, and in doing so has made use of such an apparatus as that above-mentioned—so as to ensure the in-take of undiluted oxygen.

Dr. Hill and Mr. Martin Flack have further found that the exhaustion and labouring of the heart which is brought on by such special exertion as that involved in running a hundred yards race or a quarter-mile race, is almost completely avoided if the runner “fills his lungs” with oxygen gas before starting. The runner takes the oxygen gas into the lungs for some two or three minutes before starting to race; of course, the lungs are not thus actually “filled” with oxygen, but a much larger proportion of that gas is lodged in them than when ordinary air is breathed, and a full supply is thus afforded to the blood. The “distress” caused by violent athletic efforts appears to be entirely due to the using up of the available oxygen by the unusual activity of the muscles. The heart itself suffers most, the breathing becomes laboured, and there is a sense of suffocation, due simply to the urgent demand by the blood, heart and muscles for more oxygen. If, therefore, we ensure that there is an extra supply of pure oxygen in the lungs before the unusual effort is made, we avert these distressing symptoms: the unusual quantity of oxygen needed is ready for use. Dr. Hill himself and young men who have tried the plan of inspiration of oxygen before a foot-race, declare that they cannot believe that they are really running hard, even when surpassing their usual performance. They come in at the end of the quarter-mile, having beaten their record; and with no sense of having made a special effort; they feel fresh and ready to start again after more oxygen and a short rest. Moreover, the after-effect on the muscles is stated to be such that “stiffness” and what is called “grogginess” (due in ordinary circumstances to the retention of lactic acid in the muscle) do not supervene.

Swimming and diving, as one would expect, are greatly affected by the preliminary oxygen inhalation; the length of time during which submersion can be endured without discomfort is doubled, and the great effort of fast swimming rendered less rapidly exhausting. Cycling uphill at a rapid pace becomes, according to Dr. Hill’s own frequent experience, possible after oxygen inhalation when in ordinary conditions it was impossible. Hockey players and boxers he has found notably benefited by oxygen given both in the intervals of and after the exercise. It is, of course, to be expected that a wider practical application should be made of this simple method of increasing our power of sustaining muscular effort, and of enduring submersion. Dr. Hill suggests that the divers of the Mediterranean, who, without any apparatus, plunge into the shallow sea and remain below long enough to find, cut, and bring to the surface the valuable sponges of commerce, might use the method of preliminary inhalation of pure oxygen gas. He has also tried the method with a young racehorse, but owing to the fact that the course run was only a mile, and the animal perfectly fit and strong, he tells me that no advantage was found to result from the inhalation. With an older cart-horse somewhat tired by a day’s work—he obtained the most satisfactory results, the animal becoming obviously recuperated and working without distress.

The question has been raised as to whether the administration of oxygen gas to a man or to a horse when about to run a race should be considered as “doping.” It may perhaps be objected to by sportsmen, as involving the provision of special apparatus which all competitors would not be equally able to secure. But it is not “doping,” since that applies to the use of a drug, which, whilst exciting to violent effort, produces an injurious after-effect. Oxygen is not in this category; to take an extra quantity of oxygen into the lungs before starting on a race is no more unnatural or risky than to take an extra drink of water into the stomach or to swallow meat extract and such special preparations before or during a race. It would be interesting to see whether a runner in the Marathon race would (as Dr. Hill would expect) be greatly assisted if his trainer carried with him a supply of pure oxygen, and from time to time refreshed him with it. Football players might also be given oxygen at half-time; an oxygenated team would, one surmises, beat its uninspired competitors. A Fife team is reported to have done so. On the roads favoured by cyclists one may expect hereafter to find at the bottom of a long ascent hawkers of “breaths of oxygen” provided with gas-bags and calling out “Buy the lady a breff, sir!” It is, perhaps, worth noting that the relief afforded by oxygen-breathing is no less definite when the gas is taken immediately after a race or sustained effort than when used as a preliminary. The excess of choke-gas or carbonic acid formed during great muscular effort is not the principal cause of the distress experienced. That gas is thrown off by increased expiration. It is the using up of the oxygen and the insufficiency of the supply in the atmospheric air inspired that causes, under these circumstances, giddiness, exhaustion, and often collapse.

The difficulty in breathing and the prostration experienced by many people in mountain-climbing is largely due, not merely to the muscular effort of climbing, but to the fact that the rarefied atmosphere at heights of 8000 ft. to 15,000 ft. and more gives into the lungs in every inspiration but a fraction of the oxygen which is inspired at low levels, and moreover, owing to the low pressure, much less is held in the blood. Even when conveyed by mule, cog-rail, or balloon to these heights—and, therefore, without muscular exertion, sensitive people suffer severely from temporary “oxygen-starvation.” They as well as the laborious mountaineer could be saved from all such inconvenience by the use of a skilfully-constructed “traveller’s flask” of oxygen gas.

The observations and experiments as to the possible use of pure oxygen by athletes suggest that we might all benefit by occasional if not frequent use of such an atmosphere. Indeed, there are some individuals—amongst others a well-known and distinguished actor—who before making some special effort, or even when feeling tired and unequal to their daily work, inhale under medical supervision a certain quantity of oxygen gas. It would certainly seem that since country air, sea air, and mountain air are useful and refreshing, an artificial supply of extra oxygen might be inhaled in London, either in one’s own house or in establishments provided for the purpose, with definite benefit to health, especially if the inhalation were combined with exercise.

The experiments made by Dr. Hill have come about in connection with work undertaken for the purpose of improving the diving and life-saving apparatus named after its inventor, Fleuss. This invention consists essentially in a water-tight helmet and jacket connected with a cylinder of compressed oxygen gas which is carried by the diver. The advantage of such an arrangement is that the diver is free from pumping apparatus and can go where an ordinary diver could not. Mr. Fleuss was able, by diving with this apparatus, to prevent an immense loss of property by arresting the flooding of the Severn tunnel which was imminent during its construction. A difficulty in regard to the Fleuss apparatus has been that oxygen gas is a poison, causing inflammation of the lungs and convulsions when under a pressure of from two to three atmospheres—that is to say, at from 30 ft. to 60 ft. depth in water. The pressure exercised by the air of the atmosphere at sea-level is equal to that exercised by a column of water 30 ft. high, and hence at 30 ft. depth in the sea the oxygen gas would be under the pressure both of the atmosphere itself and of water to the same amount—which is expressed by saying that it is under two atmospheres’ pressure, or twice the atmosphere’s pressure. The pressure of the atmosphere is, in plain figures, 15 lb. on every square inch of surface. Of course, the oxygen is compressed far beyond this point in the cylinders in which it is carried. In using it, it is allowed to escape by opening a valve leading into an elastic sac, and is then and there subject to the pressure depending on the depth of water to which the diver has descended. It is found to be dangerous for a diver with this apparatus to descend to a depth of more than 30 ft. having pure oxygen in his apparatus, because the oxygen is then compressed under a pressure of two atmospheres. Accordingly, Dr. Haldane, of Oxford, has proposed that the oxygen should be diluted with atmospheric air, so as to give a mixture of equal volumes of oxygen and nitrogen. With this mixture the diver can safely descend to a depth of 60 ft. The apparatus is provided with a partition containing caustic soda, which absorbs the carbonic gas thrown out of the lungs in expiration. With such an apparatus a diver can safely remain under water at a depth of 60 ft., and walk about and explore for as long as two hours. A most important application of this self-contained diving apparatus is found in its use in the exploration of mines, where smoke or gaseous products resulting from an explosion render it impossible for rescue parties to penetrate without its use. It has been the means of saving many lives in such circumstances. A form of this apparatus is made in which the oxygen is supplied, not by a cylinder of compressed gas, but by granules of a chemical compound called pneumatogen, a peroxide of sodium and potassium, which when breathed into absorbs carbonic acid from the air expired by the lungs, and gives off pure oxygen. Submarine ships are now being provided with a dress or outfit of this description for each member of the crew, so that in the case of the entrance of water into the submarine, every man can put on his “oxygen helmet,” and one by one, when the ship is full of water, they can pass out by the conning tower and float to the surface. The perfected diving dress, with self-contained diluted oxygen supply and other improvements, has been constructed by Siebe, Gorman, and Co., and was exhibited by Dr. Leonard Hill at a soiree of the Royal Society.

XXVIII

SPARROWS, TROUT, AND SELECTIVE BREEDING

The talk about the urgent need for the destruction of sparrows reminds me that the word “sparrow” is applied commonly in this country to at least two very different but common birds. No doubt farmers and gardeners know well enough the house-sparrow (_Passer domesticus_ or _Fringilla domestica_ of Linnæus), which is the one they consider injurious. But some boys and some newly-fledged proprietors of country places may inadvertently confuse the house-sparrow with a very different bird, though only a little smaller and of a general brown colouring, also called “sparrow,” namely, the hedge-sparrow (_Accentor modularis_).

The hedge-sparrow is a true denizen of the country. It does not live on grain, but on insects and grubs, and is useful on that account to agriculturists. Its eggs are pure blue. A spotted egg of a cuckoo laid amongst them readily catches the eye, so that cuckoos’ eggs are often found in hedge-sparrows’ nests. It seems that it is all a mistake on the part of the cuckoo hen when this occurs. The strain of cuckoos properly attached to hedge-sparrows lay a beautiful blue egg differing only in its somewhat larger size from those of the hedge-sparrow itself, and hence difficult to detect. These blue cuckoo-eggs—proper to cuckoos which make use of the hedge-sparrow as foster-mother—escape detection both by boys and the foster-parents, and successfully hatch out and propagate the race of blue-egged cuckoos with a memory and a sense of smell which bring them back if they are hen-birds to the little hedge-sparrow’s nest when they are grown up and have an egg to dispose of. The spotted grey or brownish eggs are, if not discovered by boys, ejected (there is reason to believe) by the hedge-sparrows themselves. They were deposited by mistake by some pippet-loving or warbler-seeking strain of cuckoo in a hurry, or are throw-backs to a common ancestral colouring of the egg due, perhaps, to the male parent not being of the true blue strain. A very fine series of “clutches” and nests of hedge-sparrow, robin, shrike, reed-warbler, pippet, yellow-hammer, and other birds with the accompanying cuckoo’s egg may be seen in the Natural History Museum, and they show how closely the parasitic egg often resembles that of the foster-parent, though striking failures also occur.

The hedge-sparrow is placed in that group of small birds which includes the robin, the thrushes, and the warblers; it is not a finch. On the other hand, the house-sparrow is a finch, allied to the chaffinch, the goldfinch, and the brambling. It has, like all the finches, a very powerful broad-based beak, and is more than a match for bigger birds than itself. It is really a parasite or “commensal” (messmate) of man, living and flourishing entirely by helping itself to the grain and the young buds of shrubs grown by man, and in towns to the waste fragments of his food and the grain left in horse-dung. Whether it does any good in the early part of the year by eating grubs seems to be doubtful, but the conclusion is justified that it does more harm than good, especially as it drives away other small birds which are exclusively insectivorous. It has gone with European man to all temperate climates. There are Spanish, African, Italian and Indian species, closely related to the common house-sparrow, which I should like to see put out side by side with it and some of its varieties for the public edification in the Natural History Museum. These are the true “sparrows,” and should be compared side by side with the hedge-sparrow, and the differences pointed out.

There is another true sparrow in England, called the “tree-sparrow,” which is not nearly so common as the house-sparrow. They are, however, so closely allied to one another that hybrids have been produced between the two. On the other hand, the hedge-sparrow is a great deal too remote from the finches to interbreed with the house-sparrow or any other of the finch group.

There ought to be a careful report on the probable effects, in every direction, of a great destruction of house-sparrows before any very drastic measures are taken in that direction. The employers of gamekeepers should remember that by destroying owls, hawks, and weasels they may not only enable small injurious birds to flourish in excess, but that they may encourage disease and weakness in the game-birds which they so eagerly desire to multiply, since the natural extermination of weakly birds by birds and animals of prey is put an end to when the latter are abolished. In all such matters more knowledge is needed, and reasonable people will not take irretrievable action until they have taken the trouble to obtain thorough knowledge.

It is a curious fact that though the house-sparrow does not naturally sing, yet hand-reared house-sparrows have been made, by association with bull-finches, to acquire the song of that bird—a truly astonishing instance of hidden or latent capacity.

A lover of trout-fishing has been writing lately upon the question as to whether the trout in much-fished rivers and lakes do or do not exhibit increased “wariness,” or even “intelligent caution” in avoiding the flies so cunningly thrown before or above them by the skilful angler. It is argued that there cannot really be any increased indisposition of trout to take the fly based on experience, because on an estimate of the number of trout in a river like the Test, and of the limited number of anglers, every fisherman would have to hook and lose some thousands of fish every year for the experience to be general among trout that the horrid artificial flies “hide a still more horrid hook.” It is, of course, held that the trout cannot communicate their experiences to one another by any form of conversation (though leadership and imitative habit might have some effect), and it is also not suggested that a trout which had acquired an overpowering aversion to the angler’s fly as a result of being hooked and breaking free, could transmit that aversion to its offspring by the mere fact of reproduction. Hence it is maintained that there is no such increasing “wariness” in English and Scotch trout. It is a curious thing that in discussing this matter the fundamental principle should have been overlooked by which Darwin and Wallace have long ago explained to the satisfaction of naturalists, the aversions and cautious proceedings of all kinds of animals, from the smallest insects up to birds, beasts, and fishes. The principle of natural selection and survival of the fittest accounts for the increased caution of trout in well-fished rivers in the simplest way. Assume (as is perfectly reasonable) that some trout are more shy than others “by nature,” that is to say, are born so, that some are born with a slightly more rapid response to the sight of food than others—as one sees often enough with a lot of the young of any animal—then the increased shyness or pretended “intelligence” of the trout after many years’ fishing follows as a necessity. The rash fish are caught and destroyed, the shy fish remain in the river, and—here is the important point, a well-ascertained fundamental law of heredity—propagate their like. They produce shy fish. Every year this selection goes on till you get a race of fish in the well-fished river which are so shy that they cease to rise at all! This unpleasant result is avoided by the proprietors of trout streams to a certain extent by introducing a race of trout which has not in consequence of over-fishing developed an innate shyness of character (such as the Loch Leven and some others) to mix and breed with the timid over-fished race.

It is in the same way that the human population of country villages, most sad to see, is every year rendered less intelligent than it was a hundred years ago. All the enterprising, intelligent young men and maidens are “fished” away, drawn by baits and hooks to the great towns; only the dull and relatively incapable are left in the village to marry and produce a new generation. The village population necessarily becomes made up of a dull stock—incapable, as appears from official reports, of being educated beyond a very low stage. In some districts 70 per cent. of the children are thus unintelligent, though not unhealthy or imbecile. It is possible that the want of home-training and example in very early childhood is to some extent a cause of the dullness of village children. And so it goes on, generation after generation, as facilities for leaving the village increase and inducements to stay or return decrease. The 30 per cent. of the new generation who have any “wits” leave the village, never to return. And no one re-stocks the village. That must be taken in hand soon.

XXIX

THE FEEBLE-MINDED

A considerable proportion of the young which are produced as a new generation of either plants or animals are not merely unlike their parents in some small particulars of colour, proportion, activity, and so on, but are, as compared with the normal or usual standard of the species, “defective”; that is to say, they are wanting in some organ or part, as though maimed, or by some cause restricted or reduced in regard to that part. This occurs in human beings, and in domesticated animals more obviously than in wild animals and plants, for two reasons: firstly, because in wild conditions the defective young die off very early in the struggle for existence and so escape human observation; whereas man protects his own “defective” young, and often, also, those of domesticated animals, so that they are allowed to “grow up” more or less; secondly, such defective structure appearing at birth, and therefore called “congenital,” is carried on by heredity, more or less completely, should the defective animal or plant be allowed to breed. Such breeding of defective individuals is prevented in wild nature by their early destruction; their defects cause their early death by unfitting them for the competition and struggle which are in natural conditions rigidly severe. Only a few survive among the many thousands of each species born into conditions of limited food and space—conditions which are not sufficient to support more than a very small number so as to enable them to reach the adult or breeding stage of life. But man, on the contrary, protects his own young, and often those of his domesticated animals and plants, from this destructive competition, and thus allows those which are to a certain extent defective to breed.

The official returns of the Registrar-General record every year a proportion of deaths of infants which are entered as due to “congenital defects.” These defects are of many and various kinds. A frequent “congenital defect” is one which does not necessarily cause death, namely, the imperfection of the wonderfully elaborate organ of sight, rendering it useless. Children often are born blind, and so are a certain proportion of each species of animal normally provided with eyes—dogs, horses, cattle, birds, fish. Even insects, lobsters, and crabs are in quite considerable and definite number born blind. The inborn or congenital defects of the eyes which result in blindness are of several kinds. The whole of the eyeball or eye-structure may be atrophied, that is to say, dwindled and incomplete, or one essential part only may be defective, and the rest quite well-formed; or, again, the nerves connecting the eye with the brain or the several parts of the brain concerned in the function of sight may, one or more of them, be defective. Wild animals born in this condition must perish, except when they happen to be born in caverns or in the deep sea. Then they are no worse off than animals with “good” eyes. But the animals with good eyes, or even with only somewhat defective eyes, will follow up the gleams of light which in moving about they have the fortune to encounter, and so will escape from the cavern or dark depths of the sea, leaving behind in the dark only those with defective eyes. These will breed together, and perpetuate their defective eyes in a more and more marked degree in successive generations. Always those which can see, or see only a little, will leave the dark place, and so at last there will be a race of animals established in such places with defective eyes (as in the ocean, at a depth of two thousand fathoms, and in the great caves of Europe, and notably in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, U.S.A.), and often the eyes will altogether disappear. This, however, is a digression.

The cause of congenital defect in eyes is not obvious. The failure of the germinal substance of the reproductive egg or particle detached from parents with sound eyes, to unfold itself—to develop—into a creature with sound eyes like those of its parents, is apparently due, in some instances, to one cause, and in other instances to other causes, of none of which can it be said that we have a satisfactory and comprehensive knowledge. The same want of full knowledge exists in regard to the causation of other congenital defects. These are as numerous and varied as the parts of the body which may be from birth onwards, in one instance or another, distorted, devoid of some essential inner structure, swollen to great size, or shrunken, or even absent altogether. Such defects are sometimes caused by mechanical pressure or nipping in early stages of growth before birth, but there are many which cannot be accounted for in that way. The wonder really is not that the inconceivably complex structure of higher animals should sometimes fail, in this or that part, to develop in due course from the simple-looking germ, destitute of visible structure, but that it should, on the contrary, so regularly and completely come off successfully in millions of instances every day. We can imagine or suggest disturbing agencies which may be the causes of failure, but it is very difficult to demonstrate with certainty the causes which have been at work in each and every case.

One result of failure of the germ to “grow up” into the perfect likeness of its parents is that it may “throw back,” as the breeders say, and resemble in this or that quality a remote, even an extremely remote, ancestor. It is suggested by some inquirers that the congenital or inborn defect, frequent in human beings, which is called “feeble-mindedness” is a reversion or throw-back to the condition of the brain in the animal ancestors of man. That is possible, and, in view of some cases, seems probable. But it must be noted that we do not know what are the causes which favour throwing-back, or “atavism,” as it is called, in regard to all sorts of structures, and that the mechanical conditions connected with the growth of the cavity of the skull in which the brain itself grows are so very elaborate that it is obvious that a very slight disturbance of one element or another might arrest or turn aside the growth of that vastly complex organ, which has become so much larger and more delicate in man than in the animals from which he has, at no remote period in the history of life on the earth, taken his origin.

Mankind have always within the period of written records (a mere trifle in the lapse of time since man became man) regarded mental defect and aberration as due to fantastic causes. To this day we use the word “lunatic” for one of the two typical forms of mental aberration: we imply that the moon is concerned in its production. The other form of brain-failure has appropriated the term “idiot,” which, it is surprising to find, was less than two centuries ago applied in common speech to any person who was characterised by independence of judgment. The term “softy” is a common and really more suitable term for this class, whilst “cracked” is the word applied to a lunatic. The notion that mental aberration is due to “possession” by evil spirits, which can be expelled and the patient accordingly cured, was prevalent a century ago, and the belief is common at the present day (though quite erroneous) that people “go mad” in virtue of some immaterial and unaccountable influence, and may therefore “go sane” again. The lunacy laws and the laws relating to the care of the feeble-minded in this country are admitted to be tainted with ignorance and misconception, and both are in process of correction by the Government of the day.

The approved professional terms used in distinguishing the varieties of “the mind diseased” are not accepted with much favour by the public, and it is unnecessary to introduce them here. The important fact is that persons of diseased mind may be separated into two groups—(_a_) the idiots or softies, and (_b_) the lunatics or cracked people. The idiotic group are those with a defective amount or quality of brain substance (whether the skull itself is small or abnormally distended by “water on the brain”), and are more or less incapable of being educated. They are often subject to epileptic fits, and are usually weakly in build, though they sometimes have great muscular strength. The “feeble-minded,” of whom so much has lately been written, owing to the recent report of a Government Commission, belong to this group. They are distinguished from the more marked section of idiots in that they are not absolutely devoid of some intelligence, and are capable, under proper supervision, of some degree of self-control. Some of them even can take part in industrial operations, though they require constant direction when so employed, and are never, even in the least serious cases, susceptible of mental development beyond a strangely and abruptly limited degree. Contrasted with the idiots are the lunatics; they often are gifted with the highest receptivity, and frequently are men or women of the highest education and intellect, normal in every feature of body and mind except that their mental machinery works in a defective, “mad” way as to one or more subjects—often only as to one subject or class of subjects. They exhibit in different individuals a vast variety of illusions and propensities which may be merely unreasonable or may be dangerous to themselves and to others.

It seems that the idiotic and feeble-minded are devoid of, or defective in, general mental receptivity, although in regard to a few things they may have retentive but unintelligent memory. Even the less afflicted among them are incapable of “thinking” at all, because their defective memory or receptivity gives them nothing to think about. On the other hand, the lunatic exhibits the ordinary receptivity of a healthy human being, but thinks wrongly or absurdly upon one or a few lines, though normally and soundly upon every other.

The State in civilised countries has long since made provision for the proper medical care and restraint of lunatics and of the extreme cases of the other class, the idiots. But by an oversight in this country, which the gravedigger in _Hamlet_ would consider very natural, the less extreme cases of idiocy—the so-called feeble-minded—have been left without State guardianship. It is a fact that these cases occur both in the wealthiest and the poorest class of the community, though they are put away under medical care by well-to-do families, and are left by the very poor to wander about and get into terrible mischief. Hence there has grown up a belief that feeble-minded offspring are more frequently produced by mentally sound parents who are very poor than by those who are rich or well-to-do, though there are not facts or figures which establish that conclusion. It has further been maintained that this supposed large proportional rate of production of feeble-minded among the poorest, ill-fed, ill-housed, and vicious dregs of the community is due to the action of defective nutrition, alcoholism, and lack of fresh air and healthy occupation upon the parents, and that a deterioration of the reproductive material, a twist, as it were, of the inner substance of the stock or breed in the direction of feeble-mindedness, has been thus established.

In reply to this somewhat hasty but at first sight plausible conclusion, we maintain (1) that the definite defect called feeble-mindedness is as common in well-nourished, well-to-do families as in the poorest; (2) that it is not proved that lack of food and good air can act upon the germs contained in a parental animal, so as to alter it in such a way that the brain of offspring begotten by that parent will not develop in normal structure and proportion; and, moreover, that “it has not been shown” (that is the important clause of the statement) that defective food and air can so alter the germs in a parent as to cause other deformation or structural defect in the young which grow from those germs. It is, on the other hand, true that such defect of food and air may cause the death of the parent, or may directly cause the death of the young, if the young are subjected to such defective conditions of life. It is necessary to point out, in reply to those who hold the starvation theory, of feeble-mindedness that it is capable of being handed on by hereditary transmission once it has appeared, and that in the most wretched groups of the population, both in cities and in country villages, the feeble-minded are not taken in charge by any authority, but leave their parents and shift for themselves, and, owing to their weakness, accompanied by unrestrained animal desires, they become, in an irregular way and at a very early age, themselves the parents of feeble-minded children. Thus feeble-mindedness is increased in the poorest class, but not in that of the rich. The facts ascertained are too horrible and painful for citation here. The recent Commission has made it clear that it is absolutely necessary for the State to interfere and prevent this terrible increase of helpless imbeciles.

There are eighty-four schools in London for the education of children who are not included under the extreme terms idiots or imbeciles, but are “feeble-minded and defective.” They are attended by 6000 children, of whom about two-thirds learn some useful manual work, whilst the rest are hopeless, and require permanent custodial care—which at present is not to be had by those whose parents cannot pay for it—but will, there is every reason to hope, soon be provided for them by the State. In its absence they constitute a real and ghastly danger to the community, since some of them are certain to propagate their kind, and not only will thus add to the existing large body of imbeciles, but perpetuate the taint of feeble-mindedness in the race.

It is an interesting question as to whether there is a definite gap—a difference of kind between these poor, defective children and the markedly stupid boys and girls of some village schools. I am inclined to believe that there is. The one group does not pass by a gradual series into the other. It has been stated that in some remote country districts of England only one-third of the school children can be taught more than the merest elements of writing, reading, and arithmetic; the majority are immovably dull, only the minority are as bright as ordinary London children. But even the dull village children get so far as to master the elements of learning, and probably their brains are not structurally defective, but only inactive for the time being. They may hereafter become village Hampdens. It certainly does seem to be the fact that the villages are continually deprived of the more intelligent members of their population by the attractions of the big towns, and that only the duller portion stay to breed in the village like the blind animals in a cave. But dullness is not identical with feeble-mindedness.

It is maintained that even in towns the multiplication of the hard-working, cautious, and capable section of the community is at a standstill. Its members seek comfort, intellectual exercise, and self-culture; they refuse to deprive themselves of these things, which cost money, and to spend that money on bringing up large families. On the other hand, the far more numerous “working-class” has no such ambition as a rule, and no anxiety as to what is to become of its offspring, however numerous. The more children the larger are the earnings of the family, and all in turn shift for themselves at an early age. The rates pay for such education as they require, and their parents have no desire to push them up the social ladder; but food, lodging, and clothes cost money. The working-man who desires to read, see things for himself, and be more than an animated cog on a wheel, cannot afford to have children and transmit to them that modicum of intelligence above the average which distinguishes him from his fellows, and demands for its cultivation the money with which he might keep a large family. Consequently the population is more and more largely replenished by the unenterprising poor and the unenterprising rich; the group which is enterprising and capable, and directs the work and thought of the civilised world, is, by the very qualities which make the increase of its strain desirable, debarred from contributing its fair proportion to the increase of the population. Is it possible for the community, by any system or by legislation, to overcome or evade this unfortunate tendency?

The neglect by both the local and central government to provide any supervision of feeble-minded children has had a special result of a strange and unhappy description. Let me hasten to say that now that we have secured by recent legislation the vitally important medical inspection of children in connection with Board schools, and the registration and official inspection of feeble-minded children which will surely be made compulsory before another year has passed, the danger of which I am about to speak will very shortly no longer exist. It is this. Feeble-minded children (whose condition falls short of that of actual idiocy) are almost impossible to manage as members of an ordinary family or household. Their condition is often not properly recognised; their parents or guardians find them to be obstinate, unteachable, and dirty. Often, when the family is poor, they are, under these circumstances, “boarded out” for a very small payment, or even taken charge of, out of charity. None of the persons concerned in these transactions know that they are dealing with a hopelessly unteachable child, born with this defective brain. They find scolding has no effect in guiding the child, mild chastisement fails, and the poor ignorant foster-parent (sometimes even the child’s own mother) becomes exasperated and determined to subdue what seems to be mere obstinacy and indifference. The awful demon of cruelty is let loose. What seems at first a virtuous determination to control and regulate the child’s behaviour for its own good leads to the infliction upon it of blows of savage violence, then to the less dangerous but revolting attempt to enforce obedience by the pain caused by a burn, and to starvation as a final instrument of discipline. A very large number of the cases of cruelty to children and adolescents which from time to time are brought into the law courts have their origin in the fact that the victim was “feeble-minded,” and that the guardian found guilty of cruelty did not (any more than do the judge and jury) understand or, indeed, know anything at all about such a condition. Often the feeble-mindedness itself has been attributed to the cruel treatment of the child, whereas the latter really was set going by the former. To a large extent the community is to blame for allowing “feeble-minded” children to be boarded out except in proper medical institutions, guaranteed and inspected by State authority. It is the same story as that which was once common enough in regard to “lunatics,” but has now been put an end to by the law. The boarding-out of children, whether healthy or weak-minded, should in all cases be illegal, except under proper official sanction and guarantee. It is not only for the sake of the children that this provision is necessary. It is certain that foolish people have been led, in the absence of all restraint and interference by public authority, to undertake without evil intention the care of discarded children, and have been led on by the hopeless dullness and obstinacy of a child with defective brain into cruel treatment of it; and when in some cases the child has died as the natural consequence of its congenital feebleness, the miserable guardians have been found guilty of causing its death. Though little excuse can be made for such miscreants, it is greatly to be desired that the law should step in at an earlier period, and both ensure proper care for the feeble-minded child and remove from unqualified guardians the chance of developing from a state of mere ignorance into one of criminal responsibility.

The Government Commission on the Treatment of the Feeble-Minded, which has recently reported, has adopted the view which I have explained in this article as to the origin of feeble-mindedness. A large amount of evidence was taken by the Commission from medical experts and others. A certain number of the witnesses maintained the opinion that feeble-mindedness arises from the action of deficiency of food, of overcrowding, and possibly of drunkenness upon individuals of healthy strain, whose offspring, as a consequence, exhibit feeble-mindedness. Some naturalists, who have committed themselves to a pious belief in what is vaguely called “the transmission of acquired characters,” think themselves called upon to support this opinion, in consequence of a notion that their belief would be rendered more reasonable than it is at present were such an origin of feeble-mindedness demonstrated. Apart from the fact that it is not demonstrated, it is difficult to see how, supposing it were, such a causation could be considered as a transmission of an acquired character. The ill-fed, drunken parent of a feeble-minded child (when discovered and examined) is not found to have “acquired” a condition of the brain agreeing with that of his or her feeble-minded offspring, though sometimes such parent is found to have been himself or herself born with a defective brain. No theory of organic memory, of engrams, inscripts, or transfer of molecular vibrations can enable us to present a plausible mechanical scheme of the way in which the acquired general condition (restricting ourselves to what is new and acquired) of an ill-fed parent can be definitely and specifically re-embodied in his or her offspring, as the peculiar structural condition of brain which is called “feeble-mindedness.” It has not been shown, so far as I am aware, that privation in regard to the food of a parental organism gives rise to new congenital qualities in the reproductive germs which that organism throws off.

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DEATH-RATES