This fact is of the greatest theoretical and practical importance because it proves that there exists, up to a certain degree, an independent degeneration of the germ plasm, even as the germ plasm may remain unaffected by damage to the soma. That such a one-sided degeneration of the germ plasm with respect to the power of reproduction may take place among animals has been known for a long time.
In particular, Chs. Darwin has collected facts of this kind in his "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication." For civilised peoples it is a matter for reflection that with animals even slight deviations from their customary "natural" mode of living may lead to such serious consequences.
As the +nature and aims of race-hygiene+ are still unknown in wide circles it will be useful to show in Tables C 46 and C 47, by A. Ploëtz, what its position is amongst other sciences and what the various branches of its activity consist in.
Many theoretical workers hold that the most important mission or race-hygiene is to fight against Therapeutics and Hygiene of the individual, for about these they have the most serious misgivings. They consider, that by maintaining inferior variations up to the age of reproduction, the average quality of the race must suffer and that to certain defects--which otherwise would rapidly disappear--an opportunity is given to spread through an entire people. This point of view, short sighted as it may be, must be examined into. It appears to be forgotten that on the one hand hygiene is powerless in cases of a high degree of degeneration and that on the other hand hygiene, by prevention of illness, does away with a number of causes of inferiority. Finally it appears to be entirely overlooked that with the best inherent qualities and unfavourable surroundings the individual development may be poor and stunted. Of what use are the highest potentialities if they remain latent? The main point is that so far convincing proofs of the preponderant harmfulness of hygiene are entirely absent. (S. Gruber, Heredity, Selection and Hygiene. Deutsche med. Wochenschr, 1909).
The Increasing Frequency of Obstetrical Operations and their Significance to the Race.
(Based on the official statistics of Baden by Dr. Agnes Bluhm.)