Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

been to show that these do stimulate growth. From experiments on plant life to human life is but a step. The Swiss experiments have been referred to. Recently Professor Silas Wentworth, of Los Gatos, Cal., has been conducting investigations at his experimental farm with a view to discovering the effects of electric currents upon animal growth. According to the reports published in various journals it is stated that a flock of 2000 sheep was divided, one-half being placed in a field under the power wires of an electric wire company, while the other half were removed from electric influences. In the field under the electric power line the production of lambs averaged a fraction over two lambs. to each ewe. In the adjoining field, where electrical influence was lacking, the lamb average was rather less than one to each

ewe.

The fleeces from the sheep in the electrically influenced field proved 20 per cent. heavier. Consequently Professor Wentworth would have us believe that the electric influence on animal life "will more than double the yield of wool as well as the production of lambs." Some time ago in the French paper Je Sais Tout attention. was drawn to assertions made by some exponents of high frequency electric currents in the treatment of disease that such currents used in the form of a bath would restore elasticity to hardened arteries for a time at any rate. That is to say, that the treatment would remedy the condition known as arteriosclerosis, so prevalent in these days.

The claims made for electricity may be exaggerated, probably are exaggerated. Nevertheless that they have some foundation is demonstrated by the fact that it has been conclusively proven that plant life can be greatly stimulated by electric currents. Further experiments on children in Sweden and by Professor Wentworth in California will be looked for with intense interest. We may be on the eve of a great scientific revolution. Nous verrons ce que

nous verrons.

THE BINET SYSTEM. PROFESSOR BINET, of Paris, whose recent death has been reported, made many observations of normal children with a view to ascertaining the average age at which certain intellectual faculties may be expected to develop. If they develop later, the child is considered to be abnormal; and the difference between the normal and the abnormal age of manifestation is taken as a rude measure of the child's degree of mental deficiency. Whatever the years of an abnormal child may be (ten or twelve or any other), the "Binet age" is that of the normal child with whose intellection (as measured by the Binet tests) the intellection of the abnormal child corresponds. Thus, a child of abnormal mentality of ten years may have a Binet age of two or three. The Binet ages of one and two are classed by this psychiatrist as those of idiots; from three to seven as those of imbeciles; from eight to twelve, such children are "morons" (a term adapted from the Greek, and nearly equivalent to the English "fool").

Questions are asked the child, and the scope of these questions widens year by year. To illustrate:

A normal child of three years should be able to give his family name. He should answer correctly: "Point to your nose, eyes, mouth." Repeat: "It rains." "I am hungry." "What is this a picture of?" At four years the child should distinguish between lines of different length; at five, between objects of the same size but of different weights; at six he should know the difference between his right and his left hand; at seven, the value of coins. At eight he should tell the difference between a butterfly and a fly; wood and glass; paper and cloth; he should be able to count backwards from twenty to one; should name the days of the week in ten seconds: and should count three one-cent stamps and three two-cent stamps in ten seconds. The nine-year-old boy should be able to make change correctly; to tell the date; to name the months of the year in fifteen seconds; to describe a fork, a table, a chair; to arrange

weights of different sizes in their proper order in one minute. If now a child of eight does not know his right hand from his left, his mentality is two years behindhand; his Binet age is six. When found to average more than three years behind he is considered mentally defective.

The Institutional Quarterly, published by the Board of Administration of the State of Illinois, in its issue of June last, presented the application of these tests to 145 institution children during the year 1910. The general results are thus diagrammed. (The actual years of the children are not given, the numbers stated being those in each Binet age):

[blocks in formation]

Of these children, four had been prematurely born, one was a cretin, six were idiots of the "Mongolian" type, eighteen had suffered meningitis, thirty-one were epileptics, fifty-nine had had convulsions, ninety were defective in speech, eighty-four in sight, and, rather oddly, only fourteen in hearing.

It was recently reported that Dr. Max G. Schlapp, of the Cornell Medical School, made, in the rooms of the Children's Society, the first practical institutional application of the Binet tests for defective children, on a boy of fourteen years named Andrew Bianco, who proved to have the Binet age of nine. Andrew had been arrested on the parental charge of associating with juvenile thieves. No actual evidence of theft was found against him, but the Children's Society, suspecting him to be rather defective than criminal, asked Dr. Schlapp to ascertain the degree of his mental development. And upon his report Justice Russell of the Children's Court

found Andrew neither criminal nor idiot, and instead of committing him to a school for the feeble-minded, had him sent to live on a farm. The Children's Society officials were much pleased with the success of the examination, and declared these tests would be used in all future cases of children suspected of criminality or idiocy; they held it to be most cruel and unjust to commit children merely backward in intellection to live with hopeless idiots in Randalls Island, for example; and they expressed the hope that eventually there would be in the metropolis a central institution where backwardminded children might be developed in psychism, might learn simple trades, and thus become selfsupporting. It is believed that children even 75 per cent. below normal can, by judicious training, have their minds very. fairly developed.

It is stated that the Binet system tests for children up to fifteen years are being introduced into the metropolitan public schools, so that children who should go into the backward classes are being discovered and classified, whilst diagnoses of the causes of their mental deficiency are being attempted. It is here interesting to note, in passing, that among the causes of mental deficiency or unbalance is the improper or reduced secretion of such specialized glands as the thyroid, the pituitary, and the suprarenal capsules. Cretinism, for example, is a form of idiocy having a perfectly welldefined physical basis; in cretins the thyroid functionates insufficiently. And the simple administration of the thyroid extract from sheep is marvellously successful. Unfortunately, however, many of the physical causes of mental deficiency are irremediable. Again, fully one-half the crimes committed in civilized communities are incidents of insanity or mental deficiency; wherefore, it is held, the "criminal” perpetrating them should be the concern, not of the police and the court, but of the alienist, the biologist, and the physiological chemist.

THE TEACHINGS OF MENDEL.

MUCH confusion exists in the minds of the majority of people as to the so-called laws of heredity. Perhaps nothing is definitely known with regard to heredity, or it might be better to say that there are few undisputed facts bearing on the subject. A large number of persons regard Darwin as the supreme authority, whereas Darwin, while the greatest student of evolution, can hardly be considered the first authority on heredity. What the name of Darwin means to evolution the name of Mendel has come to mean to the study of heredity. The comparatively obscure Austrian abbé preached his doctrine of heredity forty and more years ago. Then his voice was as one calling in the wilderness, and it is only within the past few years that his remarkable discoveries have been appreciated at their true worth. The English man of science, Bateson, was the first to propagate his views, since which time Vries in Holland and others in England have been enthusiastic in popularizing his discoveries. Before Mendel's day it was generally believed that the net inheritance of any individual was the average of the characteristics of the parents. It was left to the Austrian abbé to give a reason for atavism or reversion to ancestral type.

Recently Professor Castle, of Harvard University, the most eminent student of "Mendelism" on this continent, has published a book which is probably the last word on the matter, at any rate up to the present time. Mendel's laws as enunciated by Castle may be summarized as follows: I. In each parent there are distinguishing marks which may be called "unit characters." 2. When the parents differ in unit characters there will be no mingling of them in the offspring: one of them will "dominate," and the "recessive" unit character will not be visible in the first generation. 3. The units will form new combinations in succeeding generations, accompanied by the reappearance of the recessive characteristics.

These laws have to a large extent been

clearly demonstrated. This was first done with species of flowers, sweet peas, and more recently with guinea pigs. If two guinea pigs, one of which is white and the other black, be mated, the black unit character dominates in the cross, and all the immediate offspring will be black. If these offspring be bred with each other, the recessive white characteristic will reappear in the proportion of one white to three black. This, of course, is the working of the laws stated briefly and incompletely, and if they may be depended upon the result of a cross involving two unit characters may be predicted. The dominant characters will appear in the first generation. In the next generation the dominant characters will be represented, together with a new variety. Taking into account that the recessive character will appear once in four times, in a total of sixteen animals, both of the dominants should appear together in nine cases, a dominant and recessive three times in each of two classes, and but one animal will have both recessive traits. As said before, the above is only a sketch of the working of Mendel's laws, but it points to the fact that Mendel has explained in a sufficiently satisfactory manner how the recessive type or "throw back" appears. Some of the advocates of Mendelism are inclined to be extravagant in their claims for what judicious blending rendered possible by Mendel's discoveries may do for the human race. A few even go so far as to aver that by such means disease may be abolished and the perfect human being evolved. The more conservative students of heredity, acknowledging the great value of Mendel's researches, deprecate the dissemination of too roseate views of the ultimate outcome of investigations in this field. Their motto is rather "to make haste slowly" and, while hoping for the most favorable results, not to give out optimistic predictions until more is definitely known as to the practicability of applying Mendel's teachings successfully to the human species.

RESEARCH.

THE rage for research has apparently reached high-water mark. It has reached such a height as to eclipse temporarily the role of teacher or practitioner, and to discount the value of these in the school and the world. A researcher may be a good teacher or good practitioner, but he rarely can serve the double function and give each its due. We cannot serve two masters, and usually experimental work is so much more free from annoyance and so much more absorbing that the leading of more or less unenthusiastic novices over old paths of knowledge becomes irksome and is, to an extent, slighted. The discovery of even an insignificant bit of truth elevates the finder in the eyes of the educational world, and he is often advanced in teaching position as a consequence, when, as an imparter of knowledge, his capacity is often impaired by the exercise of his skill, and his good fortune in the other line of work. Besides, he may never have had natural gifts as an instructor.

If it is difficult to merge the teacher and investigator, it is more difficult to combine practice and research. Many happy discoveries have been made both by teacher and practitioner, for both should have their eyes open, but the special work of laboratory investigator takes so much of time and pains that there is little room for anything beside.

There is coming to pass, now that this high tide of research is reached, a division of labor between researcher and teacher on the one hand, and between investigator and practitioner on the other. This means that all special forms of work will be done better than formerly and with less waste of time and energy.

There is bound to come also a separation of schools into those which train for investigation and those which train for practice, and within schools there will arise a similar differentiation of courses. Though there will be this specialization, the matter of investigation will not be wholly separated from either practice or teaching,

for these will be the balance wheels to offset the work of the theorists and keep them in touch with practical work. Practical work and laboratory research need to be separated, but the results of the former must be checked off upon the latter if it is to be of most value. Those who are adapted for one kind of work are not always adapted to the other, and the division of labor which is coming will put more men in the class where they belong. There will be better investigators and better teachers, better laboratory workers and better physicians, without inharmonious mixings of both.

EDUCATION IN SEX.

AFTER the organization of many societies, the holding of many meetings, the reading and discussion of many papers, the problem of education in sexual matters remains much the same as it did before such elaborate organized agitation took place. We know no more than we did before about the importance of the subject, in fact not more than was known a century ago. Unfortunately we also seem little more sure about how to attack the problem. The physician would place the responsibility with the parent, and the parent with the physician, and both would like to put the matter in the hands of the teacher of biology. In the meanwhile the child gets his education just as he did before, from other children, from vicious adults, or through experience.

There are at least a few things which are clear from a pedagogical standpoint: that the child should have the truth, that it should be delivered tactfully and as befits his age and understanding, and that it should be imparted at the time his questioning mind asks for such knowledge. It would seem to follow that he should have the information from the teacher in whom at the time he confides or should confide, be it parent, pedagogue, or physician. Usually the beginnings in such education will fall to the lot of the most important teacher -the parent. If the information can be

derived through, or supplemented by, the study of biology, at home or at school, so much the better, provided it comes at the opportune time for the needs and capacity of the pupil. Such instruction, followed by thorough training in physiology and hygiene in public school and college, would be as adequate education in this line as one could wish. Even with this, the strongest of appetites must lead many of a lower order of moral control to learn by experience, but this is to be expected.

As an outside influence for good, adequate means of hard physical play and mental exertion will prove the greatest adjunct in such training for purity. The city has always been the hotbed of sexual vice, and the present-day crowding of humanity must throw an additional percentage of young people into temptation. It is the more important that the conditions surrounding the city child should be bettered.

A small army of books and pamphlets on sexology, some of them very good indeed, are being published, and these will be useful for older pupils, though for earlier lessons they can be of little purpose save as suggestive of ways and means to the teacher. We presume, however, that where personal instruction is shirked a good book will be the "next best thing."

There can be no doubt that sexual purity is on the increase. Only a century ago the virtue of chastity was a subject for ridicule. Nor did the golden age in such matters precede the eighteenth century by any means. Without any formal teaching society is improving in such matters, but perhaps we can hasten the process a little. The formation of societies and the agitation of the subject is helping to awaken wider interest, and so is doing much good, but the problem remains, as before, largely one of personal appreciation and sympathy of parent and child, of teacher and pupil, of physician and patient, and the burden of responsibility rests with those who deal personally with the young rather than with any organized body of agitators.

EXPECTORATION.

EXPECTORATION is disgusting, except to those who enjoy disgusting things. Moreover, it is always a sign of the abnormal. Save to repel those whom he imagines as unfriendly, no animal save man is guilty of spitting.

The dangers in the miscellaneous distribution of sputum in public places are recognized, and, following rather crude methods of cure, the treatment is a fine for the act. This attempt at regulating the nuisance has the effect of at least removing it from public places and of concentrating it in sundry vile receptacles known as spittoons, or of distributing it to the winds of heaven with the dust of the roadside.

To some extent we are cleansing one source of the evil, and the most dangerous source, namely, tuberculosis of the lungs. Then, possibly, the efforts of hygienists are producing some fruit in the way of prevention of colds and catarrhs, which are also sources of excessive mucous discharge. The reduction of dust in factories and on the streets, and, to an extent, in travel, is also helping to remove the sources of irritation to the air passages.

Probably the most constant cause of expectoration is the use of tobacco. Rather, we should say, the overuse of it. Fortunately the chewing habit is not what it once was, and the stygian floods formerly emanating from this source have largely abated, though doubtless the cannon stove and its vicinity in many a village store is even now being veneered with the condensed product from many mouths. Smoking, however, is still overdone, and, though this habit is not to be abolished at once, it is certainly possible to produce some effect upon its abuse by professional advice. The physician is often consulted by the smoker as to the quantity of tobacco he should use and is frequently brought to the doctor by a chronic inflammation of the upper air passages, brought on by an overuse of tobacco. Since this overuse is accompanied by expectoration, the

« ForrigeFortsæt »