EUGENICAL FIELD INVESTIGA-
TIONS AT WHITTIER,

CALIFORNIA.

sections: (1) personal or developmental history and (2) family history. For the family history the Eugenics The California Bureau of Juvenile Record Office method was followed Research, of which Dr. J. Harold without elaboration or change. For Williams is Director, is located at the personal history of the propositus the Whittier State School. This an outline was adopted, which has Bureau has branch laboratories in been used consistently in the 426 all state institutions caring for chil- histories obtained to date (Oct. 20, dren. It publishes the Journal of 1922). The outline includes 13 items, Delinquency, a bi-monthly technical as follows: Chronological data; inmagazine devoted to the scientific telligence; temperament; other menstudy of problems of social conduct. tal conditions; physical condition; The Bureau also conducts research moral character; conduct; associates; along psychological and eugenical amusements; education; vocational record; home conditions; neighborhood conditions.

lines.

Each of the 13 items is divided into a number of sub-items, and a uniform order of presentation is followed in all cases. In home conditions and neighborhood conditions the uniformity of procedure is carried

Field investigation at Whittier State School began with the opening of the department of research in October, 1915, by Superintendent Fred. C. Nelles. At that time the research staff consisted of three persons the psychologist, one field-worker, and one clerical assistant. The original still farther, and standardized scales field-worker was Karl M. Cowdery (E. R. O. '15), who is now director of education for Whittier State School. His original appointment was made for one year by the Eugenics Record Office, in accordance with the cooperative plan of introducing scientific family history studies then in effect.

The first field work was limited chiefly to the making of a rapid survey of special cases, particularly relating to those in need of special segregation or transfer to other institutions. The early histories were therefore brief, although the number of cases represented was relatively large. The field investigation directly followed the psychological examination, and supplemented the laboratory findings.

have been devised for grading the conditions found. These are the Whittier scales for grading home and neighborhood conditions, and are comparable with the many scales and tests now in use for evaluating mental and educational conditions. The research staff has also contributed to the standardization of intelligence tests, devised a scale for testing achievement in geography, and is participating in a joint investigation aiming at the development of moral character tests. Mr. Willis W. Clark, while sociologist on the staff, devised a scale for grading juvenile offenses.

Dr. Williams writes, "One of the important factors in the development of the social case investigation at Whittier is the high degree of coAs soon as the preliminary survey operation and encouragement on the was completed, work began on or- part of the Eugenics Record Office. ganizing and standardizing the It is the hope of the staff that the method of investigation. The data quality of its work will justify the for each case were divided into two permanence of this relationship."

CONFERENCE OF JUDGES IN

INDIANA.

time, indicate that of each 100 paroled, there have been but 26 unsatisfactory cases.

The Governor also stated that he felt that Indiana should have a State Orphanage where scientific study of the child, including heredity and mental make-up, should be made during the course of the State's care of every child.

...

we are

66 The Governor said now beginning to understand that a very large number of prisoners are either mental defectives-feebleminded, epileptic or insane. At least one third of the State Prison population, including those in the Hospital for Insane Criminals, are mental cases, and we have reason to believe that almost as large a proportion of the population of the other State penal and correctional institutions is mentally subnormal. This is really one of our most serious problems.

A Conference of the Judges of the Supreme, Appellate, Superior, Circuit, Criminal, Juvenile and City Courts of the State of Indiana was called at the House of Representatives at Indianapolis, on January 12, 1922, by Governor Warren T. McCray, who stated that the purpose was "to promote more uniformity in the administration of criminal law and to have a closer coöperation between the courts and the penal and reformatory institutions of the state." The meeting was attended by many judges, the prosecutors of a number of the courts, and most of the state penal institutional officials. The history of the various institutions for delinquents in the state was briefly reviewed and the purpose of each stated, and a plea was made that discrimination be used that offenders be committed to proper institutions. A We need to recognize the feeblediscussion of facts concerning the present population of the penal institutions of the state showed that the number of admissions had been higher since the War, but that the average was less than it was ten The Governor was followed by a years ago, even considering the in- representative, either a member of crease in the population of the state. the board of trustees or the superThe relation of the returned soldier intendent, of each of the state penal and the "crime wave" was discussed. and correctional institutions. The This brought out that some of the ex- parole and indeterminate sentence service men had not had a clean rec- system, and educational and indusord before service, and that many trial training were defended by the ex-service men, at present in institu- men who were actually handling these tions, were suffering from mental problems. disease resulting from War conditions. Further, the failures in the indeterminate sentences and the parole law administration loom much larger in the public eye than the successes, with the tendency on the part of the uninformed public to condemn the system. Statistics for Indiana, covering a long period of

minded when they come into the public schools, or at least when they are brought into court. Now we can only sort them out after they get into prison.”

Judge Hugo Pam of Chicago, after emphasizing the need of study of the family and life history of criminals, stated that this meeting was the first of its kind held in the United States and that he felt that it would do much good in assisting each of those present to understand the problems of others.

ARTHUR H. ESTABROOK.

sign, or symptom (Friedrich W. E. A. von Graefe, German ophthalmologist), is the failure of the upper lid to follow the eyeball in glancing downward.

MYOTONIA CONGENITA (THOMSEN'S DISEASE). In the American Journal of Medical Sciences (Vol. 140, p. 80, 1910) Julius P. Sedgwick of the University of Minnesota reports a family of the oldest New England stock, in which there is a high incidence of Myotonia congenita accompanied with von Graefe's sign. In five generations limited. The typical characteristics thirty-one persons are recorded; of of a dominant trait are shown by the

From the analysis of this particular family, it appears that Thomsen's disease is a simple Mendelian dominant, and is, in no manner,

sex

OLD NEW ENGLAND FAMILY SHOWING VON GRAEFE'S SIGN IN MYOTONIA
CONGENITA (THOMSEN'S DISEASE).

The shaded symbols represent members of the family who are affected with Myotonia congenita and von Graefe's symptom.

these, thirteen-seven males and fact that the trait never skips a six females are affected. Thomsen's generation. When it drops out of the disease (named from Asmus Julius Thomsen, a Danish physician), technically known as Myotonia congenita, is a disease which is commonly congenital and highly hereditary. It is characterized by tonic spasm or rigidity of the muscles, coming on when these tissues are first put into action after a period of rest. With use, the stiffness gradually wears off. Specifically, von Graefe's

family, it is permanently lost to the descendants, unless it again enters by mutation or by marriage with affected stock. Also in particular fraternities there is a relatively great number of affected, compared with unaffected, children. Dominance is again nicely shown by the case of III-6, an affected man who twice married, each time an unaffected wife; but by both wives he had affected children.

PROSTITUTION AND THE

VENEREAL DISEASES. The American Social Hygiene Association has been investigating the question of Prostitution for many years. The material collected by this organization, together with that of other authorities, supplies the following points which should be of prime interest to every one:

Thirty-three per cent. (33%) of all prostitutes are feeble-minded. Ninety per cent. (90%) of all syphilitic in

cent. (33%) of the cases. In 1910 it was estimated that there were 1,800,000 insane persons in the United States, and that twelve per cent. (12%) of this insanity was caused by syphilis.

CANCER IMMUNITY.

C. Lewin (Medizinische Klinik, Berlin, July 30, 1922) calls attention to two new elements in cancer research, namely, the so-called protein therapy and an appreciation of the fact that white corpuscles are of essential importance in the resistance of the body to malignant growths. His experiments for the last three years have clusion is that artificially induced been following these lines. His conleukopenia favors the growth of cancer while leukocytosis checks it.

In reference to immunity, he reports that in a group of twenty-one unimmunized mice inoculated with cancer, this disease developed rapidly in all but four. In another group of twenty mice that had been given parenteral injection of from 0.5 to 1 c.c. of a 2 per cent. solution of nucleic the cancer, no cancer at all developed. acid before they were inoculated with (Jour. Am. Med. Asso., Sept. 30, 1922.)

fections in men are derived from the prostitute, either professional or amateur. Fifty per cent. (50%) of all syphilitic women are infected innocently. Seventy per cent. (70%) of women who came to the New York Hospital for venereal disease treatment were respectable married women infected by their husbands. Eightyfive per cent. (85%) of married women who have syphilis have contracted it from their husbands. Fifteen per cent. (15%) of all first admissions to the New York State Hospital for the Insane are traceable to syphilis. One hundred per cent. (100%) of all paresis cases (general paralysis of the insane) are directly due to syphilis. Ninety-eight per cent. (98%) of all white prostitutes have at least one venereal disease. Two out of every thirteen deaths in Family-Tree Folder (Car-27) filled out the United States to-day are directly with evident pains and intelligence or indirectly caused by syphilis. by a member of the family. In the About five per cent. (5%) of children third generation appears a fraternity who are idiotic became so because of of 7 children, of whom 4 (2 male and syphilis. Syphilis and gonorrhea 2 female) are typical albinos. There cause over fifty per cent. (50%) of the blindness in children according to English statistics. In this country it is estimated that over fifty per cent. (50%) of the children blind, from birth, owe their blindness to gonorrheal infection. Deafness in young people, British statistics show, is due to syphilis in thirty-three per

ISOLATED ALBINO FRATERNITY,
This office has lately received a

are 95 other persons described in this family, none albinos. Apparently no other case of albinism is known in the family network. The four grandparents of this fraternity were all born in Ireland. They have different surnames; hence the parents are probably not close relatives. All had blue eyes and "brown hair. The father

66

belongs to a fraternity of 9. All who tion than I had ventured to hope grew up have a blond skin color; all existed. It does not, of course, in any but one have blue eyes; the hair color way supplant or supercede the theory is mostly "brown"; in one it is of personality inheritance, but from "fair" and in one it is black. The my limited knowledge I should supfather has blond complexion, clear pose may very greatly strengthen it. blue eyes and dark brown hair, has Particularly may this support come chronic kidney trouble." The moth- from a study of the cases requiring er belongs to a fraternity of 7. All colon resection, many of whom aphave blond skins, blue eyes, brown pear to have congenital colon deformhair, except one "blond haired" and ities which predispose to extensive one who has red hair. The mother colon pathology. May not such deis blond, blue eyed, and dark brown formities be dominant and therefore haired. She suffers from rheumatism; transmissible? If so, we have a posis easily excited. So far there is no sible explanation of the occurrence in evidence that the albinic defect occurs families of so-called "functional in the two parental stocks. The only psychoses which are often arrested by thing suggesting albinism in other colon resection, and which had been members of the family is red hair in formerly looked upon as a personality aunt and maternal first and second inheritance. If we cannot have funccousins of the central fraternity. tion without form, so we cannot have There are four cases of such red hair abnormal function without abnormal on the maternal side. There are three form. I think that a better knowledge cases of red-haired persons on the of the colon may help us to underpaternal side. Two are consorts of stand the transmission in certain famoutside blood and the third is a ilies of serious mental abnormalities. daughter of one of these consorts. I shall have some material in the near However, the daughter would probably future and hope to have the privilege not have shown red hair had not both of talking with you about it. parents carried the determiner for it tract from a letter by Dr. John W. or for absence of brown pigment. Draper, New York.) Thus on both paternal and maternal sides there is an occasional absence of formation of brown pigment. Possibly the albinism may be due to the union of gametes with genes for no brown and no red pigment, thus producing white hair.

HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. You will be interested to know that we now have a "functional" group of fourteen hundred people from the State Hospital for the insane at Trenton upon whom we have operated for the removal of local foci and that a study of this group reveals, I believe, a closer relationship between the mental condition and the physical infec

ZYGODACTYLY.

(Ex

The foetal foot is, at an early stage of development, normally webbed; in the adult the toes become separate, but digits 2 and 3 not rarely remain more or less united. Schultz gives (in Jour. of Heredity, for March) 3 pedigrees of syndactylous families and concludes that no generation is skipped and that webbed females are less apt to have syndactylous children than webbed males. But webbed females may have syndactylous offspring; and so Schultz concludes that this fact tells against Castle's hypothesis that the gene for the trait is carried in the Y-chromosome.