Compliments of the jjmthor. 
Influence ©f Heifedit^ in ^©ducin^ 
Disease and De$eneitacV 
The Remedy. 
Insanity, Inebriety, Crime and Pauperism Consid- 
ered as Physical Diseases. Acquired Physical 
Conditions Transmitted to Offspring An 
Unprejudiced Discussion of the Alco- 
hol Question. All Sin Reduced 
to a Physical Basis. 
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE TEE 
INDIANA STATE MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 10, 1891. 
GONZALVA C. SMYTHE, A. M., M. D., 
OR Q R EI E N O A ST L_ ino.? 
President of the Society. 
Reprint fron? Transaction for 1890 
INDIANAPOLIS : 
WM. B. BURFORD, PRINTER, LITHOGRAPHER AND BINDER, 
1891 ^phe * I^esident's^^ddifess. 
GONZALVA C. SMYTHE, A. M., M. D., OF GREENCASTLE. 
THE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY IN PRODUCING .DIS- 
EASE AND DEGENERACY, AND ITS REMEDY. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Indiana State Medical Society : 
We have assembled upon this occasion to celebrate the forty- 
second anniversary of the organization of our society, and by 
the courtesy of my distinguished fellows I have been honored 
with the presidency for this session, with the additional duty 
imposed upon me of delivering the annual address. 
In studying this matter over, I have almost arrived at the 
conclusion that presidential addresses for occasions of this kind 
would better be abolished, for it is more than probable that the 
time spent in their delivery could be better, more pleasantly 
and profitably employed in prosecuting the scientific work of 
the society ; and more especially is this the case in recent years, 
when, with the multiplication of organized bodies, embracing 
so many specialities, invading every department of medicine 
as well as the collateral sciences. Under these circumstances 
it is especially difficult to select a subject not already worn 
threadbare, or cultivate a field, the soil of which has not pre- 
viously been exhausted, in search of some subject of sufficient 
importance to interest the learned body which I am now ad- 
dressing. 
Of course, it would be an easy matter to squander an hour in 
laudation of a Koch, a Pasteur ora Lister, or, by sounding the 
praises of the profession in general for past achievements, for 
which we have never displayed any conspicuous lack of modesty. 
How would it do to vary the ordinary method of procedure 
and point out some of our failures in the past, the deleterious 2 
effects they have had upon the human race, together with the 
means by which the present conditions are to be remedied and 
the future protected ? 
When the art of medicine had been sufficiently evolved to 
attract the attention of the historian, the world was peopled 
with a race of athletes who could wield clubs, a single blow 
from which would almost paralyze an elephant. They could 
do battle incased in armor and bearing shields the weight of 
which alone would crush the ordinary man of to-day. The 
descendants of these people, who were physically weak or im- 
perfectly developed, were permitted to perish, or even encour- 
aged to do so, especially by the Spartans. 
Our profession, animated by purely philanthropic motives, 
encouraged them to live, and by its skill enabled them to do so 
and to propagate their kind, to introduce their impure blood 
and degenerate tissue into, and contaminate the line physical 
organizations which had been preserved by the survival of the 
fittest, and thus began that physical degeneration in the race, 
the end of which can not, as yet, be foreseen. 
These preliminary remarks bring me to the subject to which 
I propose to call your attention, viz.: to The Influence of 
Heredity in Producing Disease and Degeneracy; the duties of 
physicians, sanitarians and statesmen in caring for the unfor- 
tunate class, caused by the operation of this agent; but more 
especially, to the means necessary to prevent the occurrence of 
this degeneracy in those so predisposed and its transmission to 
and its reproduction in the unborn. 
The subject of heredity has never received the attention its 
importance demands, and, consequently, it is, as yet, imperfectly 
understood. It has always appeared somewhat mysterious to 
the ordinary observer why an individual would sicken and die 
with the same disease which terminated the life of the parent 
forty, fifty, or sixty years previously; so it would also to the 
most advanced scientist, if based upon the idea of infection or 
contagion, thus carrying disease germs in a dormant state for 
that period of time. On. the contrary, actually diseased condi- 
tions, possibly with a few exceptions, are not inherited by the 
offspring in man, but it is a thing quite common in the lower 
animals. But we do, with absolute certainty transmit our 3 
anatomical peculiarities to our children, not only those which 
we have inherited from our ancestors, but conditions which we 
have acquired. I do not mean this in the sense that the grosser 
lesions or mutilations will be transmitted. If a parent lose a 
limb, the child will not be thus maimed, nor if an eye, will the 
child be blind, yet club-foot, congenital cataract, deaf-mutism 
and other diseases are, beyond doubt, transmitted. 
Brown-Sequard, in making sections of certain nerves in 
guinea pigs for the purpose of producing epilepsy, observed 
that the portion of the limb paralyzed by the section of the 
nerve was eaten away by the animal. This maimed condition, as 
well as the epilepsy, was transmitted through several genera- 
tions. 
Whatever may be said of the justice of the divine law that 
visits the sins and the iniquities of the parent upon the inno- 
cent and the unborn, it is certainly true that such a law exists, 
and there is no escape from its action, but as a compensation 
the law also holds good that our better qualities, which vastly 
outnumber the bad, likewise are transmitted. 
When we study this subject from the standpoint of the biol- 
ogist, the influence of heredity is much more easily compre- 
hended. Beginning with the lowest form of life, the single 
cell, for instance, we find that reproduction is accomplished by 
fission. The cell is simply divided into two equal parts by a 
constriction around its center. Now, so far as we are able to 
see with the microscope, these new cells are identical in struct- 
ure. This process will confinue, and, so far as numbers are 
concerned, will soon reach what is practically infinity. But so 
long as the environment is the same the cells will be each one 
the exact counterpart of the other, and every property belong- 
ing to the original parent cell has been inherited by the most 
recent progeny. So it will be seen that reproduction and her- 
edity in the simplest form of life is an endless repetition, and 
nothing more. 
A change in environment may cause some of these cells to 
acquire new properties and new conditions, and they begin to 
coalesce and form a compound body, and now reproduction 
may take place by gemmation, or the budding process. A 
constriction takes place upon some parts of the surface, and 4 
what is practically a cell is separated, which has inherited the 
properties of the new body. But the constriction and separa- 
tion is practically the same as fission. The separated cell is 
endowed with the same potentiality as the parent body, and 
will, when subjected to the same environments, produce a body 
exactly similar to the parent. 
As we ascend in the scale of living beings, either plant or 
animal, the process becomes more complicated, but so far as 
growth and propagation are concerned the process is essen- 
tially the same, cell by cell, and when the highest form of de- 
velopment is reached, as in man, the process is still the same- 
a single cell is elaborated and given off by the ovary, which is 
really as simple a process as fission or gemmation. This ovum, 
after being fertilized, reproduces by cell growth an individual 
similar to or identical in anatomical structure with the parents, 
when the environments are the same or similar. This new in- 
dividual will not only inherit the anatomical peculiarities of 
the parents, but the peculiarities in regard to the functions of 
various organs, and, as age advances, predisposing causes to 
certain diseases will develop at the same period in life at which 
they afflicted the parents-tubercular troubles from fifteen to 
thirty; Bright's disease, with dropsical effusions and uraemic 
poisoning, later; rheumatoid arthritis and valvular lesions, 
embolism with paralysis and cerebral softening, still later, 
while degeneration of the arteries with apoplexy will termin- 
ate the lives in some families generation after generation. 
Upon investigation it will be seen that every family will 
have transmitted in the direct line some predisposition to cer- 
tain diseases which will terminate the lives of a majority of its 
members. For every form of disease which affects humanity 
there is probably an anatomical cause, which will be discovered 
in the future. It is impossible to escape the influence of hered- 
ity so long as the mating of the sexes is governed by senti- 
ment in lieu of science. 
But I am digressing somewhat from my original intention. 
However profitable it might be to pursue the subject of hered- 
ity, in regard to diseases in general, it is to some particular 
forms of disease only that I wish to call your attention-those 
which arc certainly entailed by heredity, and are fraught with 5 
great danger to the well-being and, possibly, might in the future 
threaten the very existence of the human race, but as certainly 
can be prevented, if the proper means are vigorously enforced. 
The medical profession has accomplished much by its per- 
sistent advocacy of sanitary measures for the prevention and 
the spread of infectious and contagious diseases. Our profes- 
sion has ever been ready to aid the legally constituted author- 
ities in suppressing disease, and in furnishing the necessary in- 
formation, by which the public health might be preserved. The 
most sublime spectacle ever presented to the world is to be seen 
to-day by observing the position occupied by the medical pro- 
fession, straining every nerve, exhausting every energy in the 
heroic effort to prevent sickness, thus practically damaging its 
own business. 
Almost every state, city, village and hamlet in the country 
has its board of health, while every coast city has its quarantine 
station. Thousands of lives by these means are saved to the 
state, variously estimated to be worth in cash from six hundred 
to one thousand dollars each, so that in case of death, the state 
is out of pocket so much money. But suppose the sick indi- 
vidual is afflicted with a hereditary disease, such as insanity, 
inebriety, criminality or pauperism; his value to the state is 
not only lost, but thousands of dollars will have to be expended 
in housing, clothing, feeding, and other necessary attentions, 
so that viewing this class of diseases in a purely business light, 
and comparing their importance with the acute infectious dis- 
eases, to the arrest and prevention of which the efforts of sani- 
tarians have been chiefly directed heretofore, it will be seen that 
the latter are dwarfed into comparative insignificance. The 
amount of money spent in caring for this unfortunate class of 
degenerates is almost beyond calculation, one state alone ap- 
propriating over sixteen millions of dollars in a single year for 
that purpose. This enormous amount of money is furnished 
by the rate-payers under the impression that insanity is a visi- 
tation from God and can not be avoided, that crimes are com- 
mitted because the human heart is deceitful above all things 
and desperately wicked; and that pauperism is the result of an 
unfortunate condition of affairs which no human foresight can 
prevent. 6 
It is conceded now by almost everybody that insanity is not 
a disease of that immaterial, unknown quantity, formerly 
known as the mind, but on the contrary, it is an abnormal 
physiological and psychological manifestation of a physically 
diseased and degenerate nervous system. It is impossible for 
me to conceive of a mind separate and distinct from a brain 
any more readily than of digestion without a stomach, and gas- 
tric juice or the secretion of bile without a'liver, urine without 
a kidney, or of ovulation without an ovary. This unfortunate 
class of patients is no longer regarded as demoniacs, and the 
clergy is no longer expected to relieve them of devils by cast- 
ing them out. It is certainly a physical disease and in a large 
proportion of cases is caused by heredity. But it may be based 
upon an acquired condition which is also clearly transmissible 
to offspring. 
A fruitful source of insanity is the abuse of alcoholic stimu- 
lants and narcotics. Inebriety is a physical disease which may 
be inherited or acquired. The children of inebriates may be 
epileptic, insane or criminal. In a large proportion of cases 
the third and fourth generations are criminals or paupers. A 
recent French authority (Paul Sollier) has traced the history ot 
three hundred and fifty families addicted to the excessive in- 
dulgence in alcoholic stimulants. His conclusions, stated 
briefly, are that alcoholism or inebriety is a disease, that the 
children inherit the damaged or degenerated nerve tissue and 
become inebriates, epileptics, insane or criminals. This degen- 
eration continues through the second and third generations 
and ends with pauperism, the family becoming extinct in a 
majority of the cases in the fourth or fifth generations. Other 
observers corroborate the conclusions of this author in every 
important particular. 
Crime based on a degeneration of the nerve tissue, inherited 
in this manner, is a physical disease as certainly as insanity and 
inebriety, and is the result of imperfect cerebration of a badly 
constructed brain. The thoughts, feelings, desires, impulses, 
and in fact, all his actions, the inability to restrain himself even 
when he is fully aware that he is committing a crime against 
the law and humanity, is a physiological and psychological re- 
sult of the anatomical construction of the criminal's brain. 7 
"As a man thinketh, so is he " must be changed to read, as a 
man is, so he thinketh. Professor Benedikt, of Vienna, in a 
work on the brains of criminals, has attempted to demonstrate, 
and with some show of reason, that gross anatomical pecul- 
iarities or abnormal variations are always present in this class 
of cases. Although his observations and conclusions have 
not always been confirmed by other investigators, there is 
probably a substratum of truth underlying his suggestions. 
Further light is very much desired upon this subject, which 
will doubtless be furnished in the near future by laborers in 
this field. 
Abundant testimony is available to establish the fact that 
crime is hereditary. A most notable example of this is furnished 
by Dr. Dugdale, in the New York prison reports, in the his- 
tory of Margaret Jukes and her descendants. The facts col- 
lected are from official sources, records of courts, prisons and 
jails. Of this woman's descendants, whose history has been 
carefully traced, there have been seven hundred and nine legal 
convictions, ranging all the way from petit larceny to murder 
and assassination, and the cost to the State of New York ex- 
ceeds one and one-quarter million dollars, and the end is not 
yet in sight. Fiften minutes skillful work by a Lawson Tait 
would have prevented all this crime, and would have diverted 
these good dollars into a channel where they could have been 
put to a better use. 
I do not wish to be understood as claiming that all crimes 
are committed by degeneratqp, because this process of degener- 
ation is a reversion toward a former type, an atavism, in fact. 
Crime is not only a disease produced by these causes, but crime 
was the normal condition of primitive man. Primeval man 
was a natural thief, robber and murderer; he was utterly des- 
titute of all sense of rights in property or even life. Whole 
tribes were absolutely obliterated and swept from the face of 
the earth, for the mere love of, and the excitement attending 
the killing, and for the additional purpose of plunder. Brute 
force alone ruled the world. Special honors were conferred 
upon him who could display the most trophies, or who exhib- 
ited the greatest bravery in these conflicts. 8 
The moral sense in man lias been evolved by the painfully 
slow process of evolution, and centuries have elapsed since the 
work of manufacturing an honest man began, and the process 
is hardly yet completed. The methods by which a Hutchinson 
corners the wheat market in Chicago, or a Gould or a Vander- 
bilt manipulates the stock market in New York, and by which 
they squeeze a million of dollars from the pockets of their 
friends and neighbors, is essentially the same in a more refined 
way by which the Arapahoe Indians ambush an emigrant train 
for the purpose of murder and plunder. 
Pauperism, during the process of degeneration among the 
descendants of the insane, the inebriate and the criminal, is as 
certainly a physical disease as is any of the conditions pre- 
viously mentioned. That it is as certainly and distinctly 
hereditary as any other diseased condition can be readily 
substantiated by incontrovertible testimony. Dr. Dugdale, 
in the New York prison reports already referred to, furnishes 
evidence to this effect which can not be successfully contro- 
verted. The reports of the state board of charities in the 
same state furnish additional evidences of the most convincing 
kind. A remarkable case is reported by the city missionaries 
of Berlin. In a single family, the posterity of which amounted 
to 834 persons, in which the history of 709 had been carefully 
examined,the criminals, paupers, etc., numbered 579 individuals. 
Among this number there were 76 convictions for the gravest 
offenses. 
But we have equally as good testimony in this immediate 
vicinity. The Rev. Oscar C. McCulloch, pastor of Plymouth 
Church in this city, in his history of the tribe of Ishmael, has 
furnished us some remarkable facts in the history of pauper- 
ism and crime. Almost every crime known to humanity, 
from petit larceny to the most aggravated murders ever com- 
mitted in the State of Indiana, belong to the history of this 
family. 
I do not wish to convey the impression that all persons una- 
ble to provide for themselves belong to this class, for, unfor- 
tunately, virtue and poverty sometimes go hand in hand, and 
there are many people who, from accident, sickness, and other 
circumstances over which neither they nor their ancestors had 9 
.any control, are poor, but not affected by the physical degen- 
eracy necessary to cause them to be classified among those af- 
flicted with the disease which I have designated as pauperism. 
I refer more particularly to the class so well described by 
Genera] Booth, of the Salvation Army, and which he calls 
" the submerged tenth," in his remarkable book, " Darkest 
England." His remedy is exclusively an ecclesiastical one, 
and, like all others heretofore proposed by either church or 
state, is intended to doctor results without any attempts to re- 
move causes. General Booth's plan, so far as it goes, is not 
destitute of merit, but neither private means, the church, nor 
any corporation or society, can effect a cure of the disease, al- 
though they may wield a powerful influence and do great good 
if properly directed. But nothing less than the powerful arm 
of the state can accomplish it. Booth's estimate of the entire 
expense of the undertaking for all England is ridiculously 
small-only $5,000,000 to begin with, and a yearly income of 
$150,000-less than one-third of the amount expended by New 
York State alone in caring for the degenerate within her bor- 
ders, besides an additional $4,000,000 expended by the charita- 
ble organizations of New York City. It would be almost im- 
possible to estimate even approximately the amount of money 
expended in the United States in caring for the diseases to 
which I have called your attention, owing to the want of offi- 
cial statistics and the impossibility of obtaining satisfactory 
information in regard to private charities. But the amount is 
probably not less than $150,4)00,000 annually. 
How much longer will a tax-ridden people continue to pay 
this vast amount of money and have it squandered in dealing 
with an effect while the cause remains untouched ? The world 
has been sadly misgoverned since history began in the manage- 
ment of the degenerate sons of humanity, because based upon a 
wrong theory. Judging by results, nineteen hundred years of 
Christian civilization have been a failure. Any plan which may 
be proposed for the remedy of these evils which does not aim 
to eradicate the causes, so far as they can be, is doomed to cer- 
tain failure. Heretofore the medical profession has had little 
to do in the civil government of the world. Our profession has 
been ridiculed by the others. They say we are divided up into 10 
different schools, can not agree, and so on. Now there is but 
one school of medicine with several small " annexes " or 
" isms," while at the same time, with the will of God written 
down in a big book in plain English, the last census shows 
that there are more than one hundred and fifty religious beliefs 
in the United States alone, while, a few days since, a prominent 
member of the legal profession informed me that he was always 
glad when the Supreme Court adjourned for the summer vaca- 
tion, for he then knew what the law would be for at least two 
or three months. 
But this subject is too serious to admit of any indulgence in 
facetiae. We are brought face to face with one of the greatest 
problems in sociology. The time is rapidly approaching, in 
fact is already here, when this problem must meet its solution. 
We are on the eve of great events, as regards the duty of our 
profession, and we must meet it in all candor and seriousness. 
It is our duty to open up the path through the wilderness and 
blaze the way, so that the religious and civil authorities can 
follow. We must lead those who have heretofore been blind 
by a way they know not, and make things which have hereto- 
fore been crooked, straight. Our profession transacts business 
in a business way. When an individual or corporation, say 
a manufacturing establishment, for instance, wishes to retire 
from business, the first step in the process is to stop the factory, 
manufacture no more goods, then proceed to dispose of the 
stock on hand, and the transaction is closed and the individual 
or firm is out of business. 
This is precisely the modus operand! which I propose for the 
United States in dealing with this class of diseases. It is con- 
ceded by everybody that a nation, state, city or municipality 
has an absolute right to protect itself from the invasion of con- 
tagious or infectious diseases. This proposition is no longer 
debatable. Every maritime city has its quarantine station, and 
all persons afflicted with or who have been exposed to small- 
pox, cholera, yellow and typhus fevers and all such diseases are 
carefully excluded until such time as they can safely be ad- 
mitted. But upon the same day upon which we do this we un- 
hesitatingly admit two thousand Italian cut-throats, each one 
with his stiletto, from the mountain fastnesses of Sicily where- 11 
assassination is hereditary and highway robbery and abduction 
for ransom is a respectable and money-making business. Many 
emigrants from other countries who are little or no better are 
also received almost daily, and while we should favor the ad- 
mission of proper persons, who would be likely to make good 
citizens, we should unhesitatingly oppose the admission of any 
more of the refuse of other countries. 
It is the duty of the Congress of the United States to pass 
and enforce the most stringent laws on this subject. Every 
medical organization in the country should petition Congress 
to pass a law excluding every person who has been insane him- 
self or whose ancestors have been afflicted with insanity, in- 
ebriety, or pauperism, or have been convicted of crime for at 
least three generations. This subject should be excluded from 
politics. The party which would attempt to profit by the ad- 
mission of this class of emigrants ought to be swept from 
existence, and should have no voice in the government of the 
country. Be it said to the shame and confusion of the Repub- 
lican League in convention assembled recently, in Cincinnati, 
that a resolution embracing these points was emasculated and 
rendered harmless at the request of a delegate, whose brogue 
was so rich that it had to be translated, and who hailed from a 
northwestern state of doubtful politics. 
These people are largely influenced to come to this country 
by agents of steam transportation lines, who visit these people 
in their native countries, and represent, by the distribution of 
printed circulars and othef means, that this country is the 
fabled Utopia. It is the duty of our authorities to inform these 
people that they can not be admitted to the United States un- 
less they furnish a consular certificate, that neither tubercu- 
losis, scrofula, cancer, insanity, inebriety, crime or pauperism 
is hereditary in the families from which they sprung. They 
should be required to forswear all allegiance to the mother 
country and declare their intentions to become American citi- 
zens in fact as well as name. No one should be admitted who 
can not be perfectly digested, absorbed, assimilated and Amer- 
icanized. As it now is, after their admission, they are huddled 
together in colonies in our large cities and mining districts. 
They are socially ostracised and surrounded by an environment 12 
through which they can not penetrate. They marry and inter- 
marry and crime and pauperism is thereby increased. It is a 
comparatively easy matter for our government to exclude from 
admission any more of these people thus diseased, but how to 
dispose of the stock on hand will tax the best minds of the 
country. 
Gentlemen, I am aware that the views advocated in this 
address, if followed to their logical conclusion, will reduce all 
sin to a physical basis and will necessitate an entire reconstruc- 
tion of both theology and jurisprudence. You can not reform 
a confirmed criminal by preaching morality to him. His 
thoughts and actions are the results of his imperfect anatomy. 
He is not responsible for his religious beliefs, because they are 
the physiological or psychological effects arising from a dis- 
eased or imperfectly constructed brain. The discussion of the 
divine law which consigns this unfortunate class to endless per- 
dition on account of the mere matter of belief, is foreign to the 
purposes of the present occasion. I wish in this place to ex- 
press my high appreciation of the clergy in dealing with this 
class of persons. They are actuated by the purest and most 
philanthropic motives. They labor diligently with the criminal, 
the poor, the sick and the dying. They give consolation and 
inspire with hope where others can not. They are our co- 
laborers in this great cause, and are entitled to great credit for 
their unremitting labor. 
I wish to announce in advance, before beginning the discus- 
sion of alcohol as a cause of disease and degeneration, that I am 
not a temperance "crank." I have never signed any pledges, 
am not a member of any temperance society, and have never 
voted a prohibition ticket, and consequently what I have to 
say on this subject is the result of careful study from the sci- 
entific standpoint of the physician, and is submitted in all can- 
dor as the honest opinion of myself. I am willing to concede 
that, in small quantities, alcohol is a food-a real hydro-car- 
bon, and more easily oxidized, perhaps, than any other sub- 
stance, when introduced into the animal economy. A few per- 
sons can use it daily with benefit, even in health, and many 
others can use it without harm, while it is, doubtless, a poison, 13 
•even in small quantities, to others. Its value can not be de- 
nied in the treatment of certain diseases, and every physician 
who discharges his duty to his patient is at times compelled to 
prescribe it. But at the same time we concede all this, no one 
knows so well as our profession the baneful influence which 
this agent has upon our patients. The surgeon knows that a 
comparatively slight accident or injury, which necessitates 
surgical interference, may prove fatal in a moderate drinker 
even ; with a much less chance for recovery in the intemperate, 
while the sot has almost no chance at all in a conflict with sur- 
gery. Nothing which the physician meets in the practice of 
his profession excites more apprehension in his mind for the 
safety of his patient than when brought in contact with serious 
diseases in those who are addicted to the constant use of stim- 
ulants, even in moderate quantities. These patients may never 
have been drunk, but they have damaged tissues, nerve degen- 
eration, diseased liver, lungs, heart, brain, stomach and kid- 
neys. 
The resisting capacity of a patient in this condition is so 
much reduced that he yields speedily to diseases which would 
not be considered serious in the teetotaler. This condition 
of the tissues of the moderate drinker has been produced 
slowly, silently, and, in many cases, secretly. These degener- 
ated tissues are inherited by the offspring, and derangement of 
the kidneys and liver, diabetes, chorea, hysteria and melan- 
choly; all of the milder and probably some of the graver neu- 
roses are transmitted or developed subsequently, while in those 
who use alcohol to excess we have insanity, inebriety, crime 
and pauperism as results. 
Should the use of alcohol, an agent of such power in pro- 
ducing harm when improperly used, or so much good when in- 
telligently prescribed, be abandoned? Certainly not, any 
more than steam should be abandoned on account of an occa- 
sional boiler explosion attended with great loss of life; or gun- 
powder, because an explosion of a few tons, as occurred re- 
cently near the city of Rome, shook the very foundations of 
the Vatican itself, with loss of life; nor of natural gas, because 
bad plumbing and careless handling occasionally is attended 14 
with disastrous results to life and property. Who would be- 
willing to abandon electricity as an illuminator or motive 
power because an occasional lineman is killed by carelessness? 
The highest type of civilization is produced by subjugating the 
forces of nature, putting the harness upon them, and compell- 
ing them to do our work. 
That the abuse of alcohol has grown to be one of the most 
gigantic evils of the age no longer can be denied. The dam- 
aging influence on future generations is more far-reaching and 
deleterious than we have heretofore been willing to concede. 
To arrest this evil, or to reduce it to a minimum, even, will re- 
quire a most heroic effort-the combined labor, in fact, of all 
good people. 
We can not escape individual responsibility when the public 
health, the general welfare, and the future happiness of our 
race are at stake. We can not fold our own clean hands about 
us and say that as for me and mine we have no responsibility. 
The individual who can do this and shirk the responsibilities 
of life, who is not willing to lend a helping hand to sinking 
humanity, and labor for it so that the world may be better for 
his having lived in it, is a misanthrope, and had better never 
have been born. But there is probably no man so far debased 
that he does not love his own flesh and blood; if he have no in- 
terest in humanity in general, his single aim in life being to 
provide for his own descendants and make them happy. But 
he can not accomplish this with certainty, for his neighbor 
may be an inebriate whose descendants may marry his children, 
and his grandchildren may be epileptic or insane, his great- 
grandchildren criminals or paupers and die upon the scaffold, 
be inmates of the penitentiary or almshouse, and finally be 
buried in the potter's field. Truly, he that does not provide 
for his own household is worse than an infidel. 
The time has come when this question must meet its solu- 
tion. With the knowledge which the medical profession pos- 
sesses upon the subject under discussion, we can not occupy 
a neutral position. We can not do so and discharge our duty 
to ourselves, our immediate descendants, or humanity in gen- 
eral. Our voices must be heard in the land, giving forth no- 
uncertain sound. We know that the Improper use or abuse 15 
of alcohol is a frequent and fruitful source of insanity. We 
know that inebriety, epilepsy, crime and pauperism, and a host 
of other diseases too numerous to mention individually, can be 
traced directly or indirectly to its door. We know that all 
these conditions, when opce acquired, are transmitted by hered- 
ity to future generations. We know that when a man is 
simply drunk he is temporarily insane, and that it may be 
dangerous to the community for him to be at large. We know 
that when the state furnishes the. means which makes this 
individual crazy, or, what is practically the same thing, makes 
it legally practicable for him to obtain it, she makes herself 
particeps criminis, and is an accessory before the fact in any 
crime which may be committed, and when she punishes the 
criminal, she is punishing a part of herself for her own crime,, 
and is occupying a position so absurd that it can not be ex- 
plained by any process of logic known to the present gen- 
eration. 
The prime obstacle to be overcome in this great movement of 
reform is to be met at the very threshold. Like the evils of 
the pension department and foreign immigration, this thing has 
attracted the attention of the politician. In the game now 
being played the humanitarian and the patriot have been lost 
in the shuffle, and nothing is being dealt from the pack but the 
pot-house politician and the ward bummer. He who can do 
the most dirty work and control the most votes, or is an expert 
in ballot-box stuffing, alone q^proaches the surface, and be it 
said to the everlasting shame and disgrace of both the domi- 
nant political parties of the country that they would by these 
means sell out the present interests of the people and mortgage 
the future prospects of all humanity for party spoils. But, 
notwithstanding this deplorable condition of affairs, it will be 
the conclusion of all thinking men, after mature deliberation,, 
that the saloon and whisky drug store will have to go. This 
is the first remedy which we, as scientific men, must recom- 
mend; remove the cause and cure the disease afterwards. 
I know that it is said that prohibition does not prohibit.. 
Nothing may be able to reclaim a confirmed inebriate. The 
only thing to be done with him is to confine him in an asylum 
and treat him kindly and humanely until he dies, taking care; 16 
in the meantime that he does not entail his infirmities upon 
any offspring, and although we may not be able to cure all 
cases now diseased, we will be absolutely certain to prevent 
others from becoming affected. 
Personal liberty is the chief corner stone upon which our in- 
stitutions in this country are erected. This sentiment has ex- 
tended itself until it has become morbid. This is a disease 
which we have inherited from Patrick Henry and our other 
Revolutionary forefathers. It has now become dangerous in 
its character, and is likely, speedily, to become the progenitor 
of anarchy, revolution and bloodshed. I will admit that here- 
tofore I have been afflicted with this disease myself, but, after 
a careful observation of its effects, and due deliberation, I am 
now prepared to acknowledge that I am on the high road to 
recovery; in fact I am already convalescent. I am ready to 
concede that the individual has no personal rights which the 
state is bound to respect, when the public health is in danger 
from infectious diseases, or the future condition of the race is 
threatened by heredity. We invade the most secret and private 
apartments of the individual in search of a focus of infection. 
We compel him to destroy his personal property when it can 
not be purified and rendered harmless by disinfectants. We 
isolate and quarantine himself and family, which is practically 
imprisonment, in such cases as scarlet fever and diphtheria. 
We invade his household and remove him by force to a pest 
house, if necessary, to prevent others from becoming affected 
with smallpox. We even blow up his residence with gun- 
powder and destroy it, as did General Sheridan at Chicago, if 
it is necessary, during a great conflagration, to save a city. 
Now when an individual dies with an infectious disease, and 
is buried out of sight, the transaction, so far as the state is con- 
cerned, is completed. It is true that we have lost his services to 
the community and state, which have been variously estimated to 
be worth so much money, but there is no future liability or ex- 
pense connected with the transaction, because his malady has 
not been transmitted to posterity and, with the exception of a 
few dollars foolishly expended by his family in erecting a 
monument and keeping his grave green for a few months, and 
which money could be put to a better use, there is no further 
expense to anybody. 17 
The acute infectious and contagious diseases are compar- 
atively insignificant as regards their influence upon the future 
of the human race, yet, at the same time that the state is using 
its immense power for their suppression,it interposes no objec- 
tion to the marriage and multiplication of the syphilitic, the 
tuberculous, the scrofulous, the insane, the inebriate, the crim- 
inal or the pauper. She not only does not interfere to prevent 
their increase, but she licenses and legalizes a traffic by which 
she contributes largely to their growth and propagation, and 
the influence of which will be handed down to posterity, thereby 
mortgaging the future prosperity of the race in addition to the 
immense burden imposed upon the present. 
Our profession knows that it is impossible to cure a disease 
as long as the cause continues in operation. It is no use to 
preach the gospel of temperance or make further trial of moral 
suasion. The Murphy movement is good so far as it goes. It 
saves many young people who are not lost, but it is powerless 
to save those who are in sore need of proper treatment. Noth- 
ing but the interposition of the strong arm of the state can 
arrest this evil. It is the duty of the government, as a sanitary 
measure, to assume entire control of the manufacture and sale 
of alcohol and to surround it with such safeguards that it will 
be impossible for any man to obtain it for any other purpose 
than a proper use in the arts, or for a medicine, when absolutely 
needed for that purpose. 
Now, if the Government can be prevailed upon to arrest the 
influx of undesirable immigrants, to quarantine, in fact, against 
the degenerates, delinquents and defectives of all countries, and 
then stretch forth its strong right arm and regulate the use of 
alcohol, and forever abolish its abuses, our work is more than 
half done, and nothing remains but to provide for the present 
conditions. 
Most rapid advances have been made recently in the treat- 
ment of the insane, the epileptic and the inebriate. They are 
no longer bound in chains and confined in dungeons to feed 
upon noxious vapors. They are no longer regarded as demo- 
niacs and tortured at the stake, but they are correctly regarded 
as sick with a physical disease and treated accordingly-kindly 18 
and humanely. This course should be continued, ample ac- 
commodations should be provided to house, clothe and feed 
every unfortunate individual belonging to this class, but no 
license to marry should ever be issued, and every means neces- 
sary to prevent reproduction should be vigorously enforced. 
But what shall we do with the criminal? As we proceed 
with the business under discussion, after we have cut off the 
supply from foreign sources, and abolished the most fruitful 
cause of crime at home, we will find this disease largely dimin- 
ished, and rapidly diminishing, and our task is growing easier 
and much less burdensome. This is in verification of the old 
proverb that " when the pennies are looked after, the pounds 
will take care of themselves." 
I have already intimated in a former paragraph that all sin 
could and should be reduced to a physical basis, and that in 
consequence thereof both theology and jurisprudence would 
have to be reconstructed. Crime, like all other diseases- 
scarlet fever, for instance-is of every grade of severity from 
the most simple, requiring but little or no treatment, to the 
most malignant and deadly. Any system of jurisprudence 
which does not regulate the treatment or punishment in ac- 
cordance with the severity of the disease is manifestly unjust. 
With the theologian it is hell or heaven, with no intermediate 
grades ; even purgatory, a half-way station fully recognized and 
endorsed by the early Christians as a good and proper thing, 
has been abolished by the modern Protestants, and everybody 
who is guilty of the smallest sin is consigned to the same 
eternal punishment with the most vile. This is a horrible 
treatment, repugnant to every sense of justice, and with the 
present anatomical construction of my brain I can not believe 
it is true. The great God whom I worship, who, by his will, 
can create such a beautiful universe as ours, and, by his word, 
organize and set in motion such exact and harmonious laws 
for its government, and whose highest moral attribute must be 
a sense of the supreme justice for all his creatures, can never 
institute or be the author of such a monstrous punishment. 
The punishment of crime prescribed and enforced by the 
civil authorities in times gone by has been of like character 
and largely copied from or patterned after the supposed 19 
Divine law, "For vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." What a 
beautiful example of justice to deprive one individual of life or 
otherwise punish him for its deterring influence upon others I 
This is, practically, punishing one individual for the sins of 
another before they are committed! Yet this has been the 
theory upon which the punishment of this class has been based 
from time immemorial to within the last one hundred years. 
At one time no less than two hundred offenses were punishable 
with death in some European countries; not as painless and 
speedy as possible, but most torturing and agonizing, the 
mangled and bloody corpse being exposed in public places as a 
deterring object for the populace to gaze upon. 
All punishment for crime should be graded in proportion to 
the gravity of the offense and should have in view the reforma- 
tion of the criminal, at least until the time has arrived that his 
reformation is demonstrated to be impossible, after which he 
will have to be classed with the incorrigibles. Many young 
■criminals for their first offense could be reclaimed by a simple 
reprimand, if administered by a kind and considerate judge, 
provided always that his subsequent environment could be 
■changed. But when the state sentences such an individual to 
the penitentiary to associate with incorrigibles, she makes one 
of him, and in this manner by not providing some milder and 
more humane punishment for mild offenders contributes more to 
the production of hardened criminals than all other influences 
combined. These amateur criminals for slight offenses, who 
are sentenced and incarcerated for a short time, are brought in 
•close contact with the most vicious, and when their sentences 
expire, being ostracised by society, they naturally drift into 
criminal haunts, where they rapidly acquire worse habits, 
which they transmit to posterity. This class might be saved to 
society and be made useful citizens, if the state provided the 
necessary conditions. An enlightened public sentiment will 
compel the state to adopt some plan for the treatment of all 
•cases capable of restoration and reformation, and abandon the 
methods heretofore in use, which have been so fruitful in driv- 
ing criminals from bad to worse. 
But what shall we do with the individual who is totally de- 
praved ; whose soul is shrouded in such darkness that not a ray 20 
of light can be made to penetrate its recesses; the assassin and 
murderer, for instance ? Why do we inflict the death penalty in 
these cases? Why do we kill a rattlesnake? Not because it 
has ever bitten anybody, for not one snake in a million is ever 
guilty of that offense, but we do know that it certainly will do 
so, if a favorable opportunity presents itself, hence, we extermi- 
nate it upon every occasion, not for any offense it has already 
committed, but in order to prevent it from exercising its pro- 
clivity in that direction. The theory upon which capital pun- 
ishment has always been inflicted upon the murderer is one of 
vengeance and revenge. He is punished because he has been 
convicted of crime. This is certainly a wrong theory, unphilo- 
sophical and unscientific. He should be executed, if at all, for 
the same reason that the rattlesnake is killed, to prevent him 
from committing the same crime again, which he would prob- 
ably do, if similar opportunity offered. 
Capital punishment is not incompatible with the principles 
which I am advocating. The state has the undoubted right to 
prevent crime, and the execution of a criminal will certainly 
not only prevent him from committing subsequent offenses 
against the law, but will prevent him from transmitting the 
tendency to posterity. 
But this class of criminals can be disposed of without the in- 
fliction of such a severe punishment, and one the right and 
justice of which is at least questionable. He can be confined 
during the natural term of his life where he can do the state 
some service. The only objection to this method of punish- 
ment is that he might escape, or that, as soon as the shock and 
the horror excited in the community by the enormity of his 
offense are forgotten, lovely woman may make him a hero. 
She will feed him on the choicest viands and delicacies of the 
season, ornament his cell with bric-a-brac and the most fragrant 
flowers, circulate petitions for his pardon, importune judge, 
jury, prosecutor, and everybody to sign it, and some fool gov- 
ernor, who has more sentiment than sense, may be influenced 
to liberate him to prey further upon society. Any plan of 
treatment for this class which does not strike at the cause by 
preventing reproduction by hereditary transmission, is doomed 21 
to certain failure. This can be accomplished only by the in- 
fliction of the death penalty, confinement in a prison for the 
natural term of life, or emasculation. 
Tn the management of paupers and criminals the two great 
obstacles to be overcome are heredity and environment. These 
classes are crowded together in tenement houses in the worst 
slums of our great cities, ostracised from contact with every- 
thing which could have a good influence upon their welfare, 
while they are in daily contact with everything which is calcu- 
lated to make them worse. Their environment is thoroughly 
bad, and encircles them so tightly that they can not penetrate 
it. Here is where pauperism is perpetuated, and the ranks of 
criminals are recruited, and, until the state interposes her 
strong arm, and abolishes every focus of this kind, all efforts 
at a radical cure will be thwarted for the very good reason that 
the cause still continues in force, and reproduction still con- 
tinues. 
Here we have to meet and vanquish again the pernicious 
doctrine of personal liberty. In this broad country, where 
patriotism abounds to such an extent that men and money 
have always volunteered to meet every emergency that has 
arisen heretofore, we have never been brought face to face with 
the fact that every life and every dollar's worth of property be- 
longs to the state and may be required in its defense, if neces- 
sary to its preservation. The state undoubtedly has the same 
power to prevent crime that it has to punish it, and its power 
is equally as absolute in dealing with pauperism. 
Unfortunately, however, the administration of civil govern- 
ment in all countries has been in favor of the rich as against 
the poor. Its operation seems to enable the rich to become 
richer while the poor become poorer. There is something 
radically wrong in the organization of human society which 
renders it possible for any individual, however great his natural 
endowments or business qualifications might be, to accumulate 
a million of dollars in the ordinary business life-time of man. 
Honest labor or business acumen can not do it. 
Even General Booth, who is more sanguine than most men, 
and who has had years of experience in laboring with criminals 22 
and paupers, concedes that these classes never can be cured un- 
less their environments are changed. His principal remedy is 
colonization. But how will you colonize people who arc 
opposed to being thus treated? It is much easier to live with- 
out work and at other people's expense. These people have 
notions of their own about personal liberty as well as others. 
They will not surrender their children to General Booth's Salva- 
tion Army or any other private corporation. Their children 
form their capital stock in trade. They are purposely muti- 
lated, scarred with burns and scalds, their eyes made sore with 
vitriol, so that they can be sent on the streets as objects of pity, 
the better to enable them to succeed at begging. The state 
has a most solemn duty to perform in rescuing these children 
from such surroundings. They must be removed from contact 
with crime and criminals, and placed where they will come in 
contact with that which will influence them for good only. 
Almost any child under seven years of age can be saved by 
proper management, can be rescued. These children should 
be taken while their brains are young and plastic. Here is 
where we are most gloriously repaid by the law of heredity, 
for, as a compensation for the evils transmitted by this law, all 
the good qualities acquired by these children by a change of 
environment and proper instruction, will be transmitted to 
their posterity. ■ By taking these children, when young, and 
subjecting them to the civilizing influences of Christianity in 
the Sunday-school, the public schools, and in the churches, 
they can be regenerated and reclaimed, at least, in a majority 
of cases. It is thus that the church becomes one of the most 
powerful factors in the process of evolution by which the 
human race is to be reclaimed and regenerated, and elevated to 
the plane occupied by the celestial gods. 
Nature has two methods by which great results are accom- 
plished-evolution and catastrophe. Evolution is provokingly 
and painfully slow, and, while catastrophe is more rapid, it is 
sometimes disastrous in its results. Evolution, in the due 
course of time, would have liberated the slaves of the South 
and made them free, but a rebellious and stiff-necked people 
were unwilling to bow to its mandates and it required a catas- 
trophe which cost rivers of human blood and more money than 23 
the entire continent of Africa, with all its colored inhabitants, 
will ever be worth. 
Heretofore the human family has struggled upwards and on- 
ward from savagery and barbarism by the unaided efforts of 
natural selection, but the time has now arrived in the develop- 
ment of the human intellect for this process to be guided and 
directed by the knowledge already in our possession. Can not 
science be made to aid, or even displace, sentiment in mating 
the sexes? Would man and woman love each other less if they 
knew each other to be anatomically perfect ? Is it necessary 
carefully to conceal from lovely woman the chief reason for 
which God created her until after she is married, and have the 
fact suddenly burst upon her mind that she has made a mistake 
which can never be corrected ? Should we not use the same 
intelligence as the breeder of stock or the horticulturist? Is 
man of less value than a horse, cow, chicken, or even a dog? 
When we look around us and see the immense improvements 
which have been made in everything of this kind by intelligent 
selection, we are almost struck dumb with amazement that 
these processes have never been applied to the improvement of 
the human family. The results which would accrue, and the 
improvements which could be made in the race, not only phys- 
ical, but mental and moral, can scarcely be estimated. All the 
unpleasant features of heredity might be eliminated, while 
those which are desirable might be strengthened. This man's 
brain might be improved in his posterity, while in another, the 
lungs, heart, kidneys or stomach could receive attention. In 
families where longevity is a marked characteristic, the period 
of life could be still further lengthened. There is not a single 
attribute belonging to the human family but which could be 
improved, and it is not improbable that new ones might be de- 
veloped, the possibilities are so great. 
It is the imperative duty of those living now, and one which 
we can not and ought not to attempt to avoid, to guarantee to 
the unborn generations of the future, each and every individ- 
ual thereof, a body physically sound and free from the tainted 
tissues and blood of the insane, tuberculous, epileptic, syphi- 
litic, inebriate, criminal or pauper. Every unborn babe has a 
right to demand this at our hands, or not to be born at all. 24 
When the principles advocated in this paper shall be adopted, 
and rigidly enforced, a majority of the conditions therein de- 
scribed will rapidly diminish, while crime and pauperism, and 
inebriety in time, will disappear entirely, and be known only 
as matters of history. In less than three generations we can 
hang our cardboard upon the door of every poor-house, jail 
and penitentiary in this broad land, inscribed with the four 
little words, "For rent. Inquire within." 
Greencastle, Ind., 1891.