QUEST OF THE IDEAL BABY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3628, 14 September 1912, Page 4

QUEST OF THE IDEAL BABY.

CONCRESS OF SCIENTISTS-IN LONDON. TOO OLD PARENTS AND THEIR OFFSPRING. To obtain tho ideal baby and real it to a perfect man or woman is the aim of the scientists who have come to London from all parts of the world to attend the first International Eugenios Congress now being held at London University, South Kensington. Founded by Sir Francis Galton, eugenics is tho new science vision deals with the hereditary and other influences that improve and develop to the utmost advantage the inborn qualities of a race. The presidential address was delivered by Major Leonard Darwin, one of the four eminent sons of Charles Darwin, the author of “The Oligiil of Species,” who have inherited their father’s scientific tastes.

Their first effort, he said, must be to establish such a moral code as would ensure that tlie welfare of the unborn should be held in view, in connection with all questions concerning both the marriage of the individual and L,c organisation of the State. Consc oils selection must replace the biin 1 forcer, of natural selection. BAD CHILDREN OF OLD FATHERS.

Professor Antonio Marro, directai of the Turin Lunatic Asylum, gave interesting details of his rosea-cues on the influence or the age of parents on the physical and mental characteristics of the children. Tiie defeats of children of too young parents wore due to incomplete deveiomnmt Among swindlers the proportion of children of aged parents was as high as 37 per cent., but the proportion rose to 50 per cent, if one included criminals who were themselves aged. Dr. Marro further asserted that, the greatest number of intelligent children wore born from young parents.

Because albinos stand out so prominently from other men they have long been the subject of careful investigation by students of heredity. Professor Giuffrida-Ruggeri, of the Naples University, showed, bow the laws of inheritance which apply to albino animals (white mice, white rabbits, white guinea-pigs, and the like) have helped in extending our knowledge of human albinos or people born with a deficiency of coloring matter in the skin, hair, and eyes. Two albino parents may be expected to have albino children. If only one parent is albino, half of the children may be expected to be albino. Sometimes an albino is born of parents both of whom are of normal coloring. In this ease the. parents must possess latent albino characteristics.

More to the point in the minds of tho less scientific of the hundreds of listeners, men and women, who crowded the hall were the efforts of Dr. Soren Hansen, director of the Danisli Anthropological Survey of Copenhagen, to find the cause of the great increase in stature which in the last fifty years or so has taken place in obtain European populations HEAVIER BABIES. Lr Hansen stated that in 1902 boys at Marlborough College (England), from fourteen to fifteen years of age. were on the average more than half an inch taller than were the boys of the same ages at the school in 1873. In the last fifty years the average height of the fully grown Dane has increased almost an inch <and a half. The improvement was generally as-

cribed to bettor hygienic and economic conditions, but the question was complex. The average weight of.newly born infants in this country has increased by almo-st two and three-quarter ounces in the past twenty years. . This is largely due to the better nourishment and healthier mode .of life of tho mother before the child’s birth. In Denmark, although the general improvement in the hygiene and economic conditions of the mothers corresponds closely to that of England, the weight at birth has only increased by an ounce and one-third.