We
have already seen that he examined the moth, to find if it were healthy,
and rejected its eggs if it were diseased. Medical knowledge of heredity
and disease makes it possible to conduct analogous examinations of
prospective mothers; and surgery secreted in the ample and luxurious
folds of anaesthesia, and protected by its guardian angels antiseptics,
makes it possible to prevent the fertilization of human ova with a
vicious taint. It is possible to sterilize defective women, and the
wives of defective men by an operation of simple ligature, which
produces absolutely no change whatever in the subjects of it, beyond
rendering this fertilization impossible, for the rest of life. This
remedy for the great and growing evil which confronts us to-day is
suggested, not to avenge but to protect society, and in profound pity
for the classes who are a burden to themselves, as well as to those who
have to tend and support them.
The problem of the unfit is not new. The burden of supporting those
unable to support themselves has been keenly felt in all ages and among
all peoples.
The ancients realized the danger and the burden, but found no difficulty
when the stress became acute in enacting that all infants should be
examined and the defective despatched.
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