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Genetics and Eugenics

Genetics and Eugenics PUBLIC HEALTH the use of the designation "bronze age" for the first of man's metallic ages. The metals added immensely to the range and uses of man's tools, increased his needs, tended to build up barter, commerce, and to increase travel. It was in this period that the medicine man added bronze razors to his collection of charms and amulets as an essential part of his professional equipment. It was in this period also that inhumation of the dead was superseded by cremation, much to the loss of the ethnologist. The perusal of this outline of man's development over a period of many thousands of years throughout the whole of which man's knowledge of disease.was entirely empirical and his interpretation of it quite dominated by superstition and fear, leads to speculation as to the effect upon human evolution of our present scientific knowledge and control of nutrition, sanitation, child hygiene, control and prevention of epidemics, and of heredity. Will the rate of evolution be speeded up or will it be deflected or counteracted by man's abuse of his knowledge? Is civilization a disease which ever and again temporarily checks human evolution and diverts its course into now one and now another human stock? C. A. KoFOID, M.D. Genetics and Eugenics.-A text-book for students of biology and a reference book for animal and plant breeders. By W. E. Castle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. vii+434 pp., 155 figs. in text. 1924. Price, $2.00. Outline for a Laboratory Course in Genetics. -By W. E. Castle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ih+33 pp. Price, 40 cents. of Mendelian factors to mutations and to the evolutionary process. The author has also prepared a booklet of laboratory instructions for the guidance of classes or of individuals desiring to make experimental tests in the genetic field with fruit flies, Indian corn and mice. The theoretical formulas for various aspects of the Mendelian ratios and statistical tables for deviations and probable error are also included. The lucid, logical, and comprehensive treatment of the subject and the sane, well-balanced discussion of controversial questions make this work one of the very best treatises on this timely subject, both for the student and for the general reader. The closing chapters on eugenics are notable for their candor and caution. After discussing the possibilities of race improvement by autocratic control of human breeding, the author sanely concludes that "we are limited to such eugenic measures as the individual will voluntarily take in the light of present knowledge of heredity. It will do no good, but only harm, to magnify such knowledge unduly, or to conceal its present limitations. We should extend such knowledge as rapidly as possible, but not legislate until we are very sure of our ground." An extensive bibliography of about one thousand titles and a well-organized index complete C. A. KOFOID, M.D. the work. Graded Outlines in HygieneBy Frank Cobb, M.D., B.P.E., Director of the Department of Hygiene, Baltimore, Md. Yonkers-On-Hudson, N. Y.: World Book Co., 1923. Book I. Pp. 214. Price, $1.36. Book II. Pp. 373. Price, $2.00. Because of the scarcity of such books Book I should be of great value in aiding principals and the lower grade teachers to plan their hygiene programs. Cobb suggests that the object of the kindergarten work be to form health habits in the children more by example and by a discussion of the simpler health problems as they arise, than by following a definite program as in the higher grades. For the first half of the first year, he outlines a study of pet animals-their feeding, sleep. cleanliness, their hygiene of feet, eyes, ears, nose and throat, etc. For the second half of the first year he suggests a study of plants, birds, and insects. In the first half of the second year he outlines a discussion of child hygiene in other lands, and in the second half of the year he considers hygiene through The value of the third edition of this wellknown and widely used treatise has been enhanced by the insertion of six new chapters which deal with the biological basis of genetics, in which the reader is oriented with respect to the place of life in the universe, the cellular organization of plants and animals, the organization of chromatin which constitutes the material basis of heredity, asexual and sexual 'reproduction, parthenogenesis, the genesis of the sex cells, chromosomes and sex determination, and the relation of genetics to the evolution theory. There have also been added three chapters dealing respectively with the principles of plant breeding, the principles of live stock improvement, and the relations http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Public Health American Public Health Association

Genetics and Eugenics

C. A. Kofoid
American Journal of Public Health , Volume 15 (2) – Feb 1, 1925
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Publisher
American Public Health Association
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Copyright © by the American Public Health Association
ISSN
0090-0036
eISSN
1541-0048
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Abstract

PUBLIC HEALTH the use of the designation "bronze age" for the first of man's metallic ages. The metals added immensely to the range and uses of man's tools, increased his needs, tended to build up barter, commerce, and to increase travel. It was in this period that the medicine man added bronze razors to his collection of charms and amulets as an essential part of his professional equipment. It was in this period also that inhumation of the dead was superseded by cremation, much to the loss of the ethnologist. The perusal of this outline of man's development over a period of many thousands of years throughout the whole of which man's knowledge of disease.was entirely empirical and his interpretation of it quite dominated by superstition and fear, leads to speculation as to the effect upon human evolution of our present scientific knowledge and control of nutrition, sanitation, child hygiene, control and prevention of epidemics, and of heredity. Will the rate of evolution be speeded up or will it be deflected or counteracted by man's abuse of his knowledge? Is civilization a disease which ever and again temporarily checks human evolution and diverts its course into now one and now another human stock? C. A. KoFOID, M.D. Genetics and Eugenics.-A text-book for students of biology and a reference book for animal and plant breeders. By W. E. Castle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. vii+434 pp., 155 figs. in text. 1924. Price, $2.00. Outline for a Laboratory Course in Genetics. -By W. E. Castle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ih+33 pp. Price, 40 cents. of Mendelian factors to mutations and to the evolutionary process. The author has also prepared a booklet of laboratory instructions for the guidance of classes or of individuals desiring to make experimental tests in the genetic field with fruit flies, Indian corn and mice. The theoretical formulas for various aspects of the Mendelian ratios and statistical tables for deviations and probable error are also included. The lucid, logical, and comprehensive treatment of the subject and the sane, well-balanced discussion of controversial questions make this work one of the very best treatises on this timely subject, both for the student and for the general reader. The closing chapters on eugenics are notable for their candor and caution. After discussing the possibilities of race improvement by autocratic control of human breeding, the author sanely concludes that "we are limited to such eugenic measures as the individual will voluntarily take in the light of present knowledge of heredity. It will do no good, but only harm, to magnify such knowledge unduly, or to conceal its present limitations. We should extend such knowledge as rapidly as possible, but not legislate until we are very sure of our ground." An extensive bibliography of about one thousand titles and a well-organized index complete C. A. KOFOID, M.D. the work. Graded Outlines in HygieneBy Frank Cobb, M.D., B.P.E., Director of the Department of Hygiene, Baltimore, Md. Yonkers-On-Hudson, N. Y.: World Book Co., 1923. Book I. Pp. 214. Price, $1.36. Book II. Pp. 373. Price, $2.00. Because of the scarcity of such books Book I should be of great value in aiding principals and the lower grade teachers to plan their hygiene programs. Cobb suggests that the object of the kindergarten work be to form health habits in the children more by example and by a discussion of the simpler health problems as they arise, than by following a definite program as in the higher grades. For the first half of the first year, he outlines a study of pet animals-their feeding, sleep. cleanliness, their hygiene of feet, eyes, ears, nose and throat, etc. For the second half of the first year he suggests a study of plants, birds, and insects. In the first half of the second year he outlines a discussion of child hygiene in other lands, and in the second half of the year he considers hygiene through The value of the third edition of this wellknown and widely used treatise has been enhanced by the insertion of six new chapters which deal with the biological basis of genetics, in which the reader is oriented with respect to the place of life in the universe, the cellular organization of plants and animals, the organization of chromatin which constitutes the material basis of heredity, asexual and sexual 'reproduction, parthenogenesis, the genesis of the sex cells, chromosomes and sex determination, and the relation of genetics to the evolution theory. There have also been added three chapters dealing respectively with the principles of plant breeding, the principles of live stock improvement, and the relations

Journal

American Journal of Public Health – American Public Health Association

Published: Feb 1, 1925

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