The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1913-01-31
LECTURE EAT METHO.
DIST BROTHERHOOD
CAUSES OF INSANITY DISCUSSED
One of the Best Meetings Held, With Good
Observation-Disclosures We're Very Interest
inc and Instructive Press is Snubbed.

by DR.. Vries in 1900, and since that
time has become generally accepted
as the law governing the transmission
of hereditary traits or characters
tics. ] will now give you an illus
tration of the working of the Law of
Mendel: as applied to the inheritance
of the pea flower.
The speaker then made diagrams
on a blackboard in which he illus
trated to some extent the law by
which may be determined definitely
what characteristics may be expected
from the union of certain characters.
There are perhaps a thousand things
may be traced through the genera
tions, and feeble mindedness is one
of them. Tendency to certain dis
eases is another; the color of the eye
is another, and in his diagrams the
doctor gave the results that might
be expected in eye color and in
strength or feebleness of mind. He
showed how and when certain re-
suits may be expected as the result
of the natural law, as two brown
eyed parents in what he called the
dominant" stage, endowing child
ren with brown eyes, and other
brown-eyed parents in what he call
ed the "recessive" stage or genera
ton, endowing their children as GER
tainly with blue eyes, and the same
combination in certain other genera
tions, an equal tendency to blue and
brown; in other generations a ten
dency of two-to-one in favor of blue
and one-in-two in favor of brown,
the chance being in the proportions
mentioned but the BIRTH of the child
being the earlist moment when it
can be known which way nature
swings in that individual. The law
is fixed, and in one generation the re-
suits can be known to a certainty in
advance; in the next generation the
results will be one of two certain
htings with a likelihood of having
both results in family of four child
ren. In the one generation, two with
eyes Of blue and two with brown
eyes would be the expectancy, while
in the next generation, one with eyes
Of blue and three with brown eyes
would be the law, or vice versa.
We have used the color of the eyes
We have used the color of the eye
because it serves as a simple illus
tration of law. The application of
the law served its greatest useful
ness in the Doctors address in deter
mining how feeble mindedness would
be transmitted. The same determin-
es how the tendency to insanity or
the tendency to crime is transmitted
from one generationn to another.
Taking certain insane person, one
who understands the natural law can
describe the parents. Having the
history of the parents to combine
with the knowledge of the person
present, much can be correctly pre-
dicted as to the grand parents on
both sides of the house. Taking the
law and applying it to futures, GER
tain well-defined results can be fore
told. The children of two insane
persons will become insane when they
grow up. The children of one in
sane and one normal person stand
certain fractional chances of going
insane at about certain oges, and the
grand children will stand certain
chances of being, one absolutely in
sane to three Of being entirely nor
NAL.
The useful conclusions to be
drawn from a knowledge of the law
IS that If the natural rights and pow
ers of reproduction could be denied
TO three generations of those having
tendencies to insanity, crime and
feeble mindedness, the asylums, the
prisons and the homes for the feeble
minded could neerly all be closed,
and by careful selection of the few
that appeared after that, it could be
kept down to almost nothing.
DIR. Hoover's Address.
DR.. G. A. Hoover responded on the
subject of "The remedy for feeble
mindedness' and other kindred condi.
Continued on page 8.