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This is an excellant book and gives a first-rate statement of the sterilization question from all its many angles. There is included an
account of every one of the sterilization laws that have been enacted and their history as set forth in the various decisions which have either upheld them, or otherwise. There is also an account of the make-up of all the Boards that carry this law into effect and a report of all the patients who have been sterilized, and so far as the facts are available the results of these operations. There is a statement of the hereditary and eugenic aspects of sterilization which is considered and judicial in its character. What is the net result? The net result is just simply what the reviewer has been holding for years, and that is that we do not know enough to sterilize human beings. There is not enough scientific knowledge in existence to back up any such program, and such a program is therefore premature to say the least.
It is rather interesting to note that even in a work of this sort, which attempts thoroughness, the problem of sterilization is taken up from the standpoint of the individual solely, whereas I have always held that there was very little sense in undertaking to predict the make-up of the coming generation from any knowledge that we might have regarding the germ plasm possibilities of an individual. We can only begin to consider the problem of prediction when we not only have that information, but also know who the mate is going to be and what the mate's germ plasm make-up is going to be. For example, to speak in Mendelian terms, a germ plasm might have some very bad recessive components, but if it mated with another germ plasm which over against each recessive component had a dominant characteristic, the outcome of the mating would be perfectly all right. But when we get into the question of recessive characters then is it not possible that every germ plasm carries them, and here if we are going to go into the task of ste