ot, a short cut to race betterment? Everyone
interested in the welfare of the race must feel the necessity of getting
at the truth in the case; and the truth can be found only by rigorously
scientific thought.

Let us turn to the observed facts. This sample is taken from the health
department of a popular magazine, quite recently issued:

"Since birth my body has been covered with scales strikingly resembling
the surface of a fish. My parents and I have expended considerable money
on remedies and specialists without deriving any permanent benefit. I
bathe my entire body with hot water daily, using the best quality of
soap. The scales fall off continually. My brother, who is younger than
myself, is afflicted with the same trouble, but in a lesser degree. My
sister, the third member of the family, has been troubled only on the
knees and abdomen. My mother has always been quite nervous and
susceptible to any unusual mental impression. She believes that she
marked me by craving fish, and preferring to clean them herself. During
the prenatal life of my brother, she worried much lest she might mark
him in the same way. In the case of my sister she tried to control her
mind."[25]

Another is taken from a little publication which is devoted to
eugenics.[26] As a "horrible example" the editor gives the case of Jesse
Pomeroy, a murderer whom older readers will remember. His father, it
appears, worked in a meat market. Before the birth of Jesse, his mother
went daily to the shop to carry a luncheon to her husband, and her eyes
naturally fell upon the bloody carcases hung about the walls.
Inevitably, the sight of such things would produce bloody thoughts in
the mind of the unborn child!

These are extreme cases; we quote from a medieval medical writer another
case that carries the principle to its logical conclusion: A woman saw a
Negro,--at that time a rarity in Europe. She immediately had a sickening
suspicion that her child would be born with a black skin. To obviate the
danger, she had a happy inspiration--she hastened home and washed her
body all over with warm water. When the child appeared, his skin was
found to be normally white--except between the fingers and toes, where
it was black. His mother had failed to wash herself thoroughly in those
places!

Of course, few of the cases now credited are as gross as this, but the
principle involved remains the same.

We will take a hypothetical case of a common sort for the s