Sterilization for human betterment : a summary of results of 6,000 operations in California, 1909-1929 / by E.S. Gosney ... and Paul Popenoe.

  • Gosney, E. S. (Ezra Seymour), 1855-1942.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Sterilization for human betterment : a summary of results of 6,000 operations in California, 1909-1929 / by E.S. Gosney ... and Paul Popenoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    STERILIZATION FOR HUMAN BETTERMENT might have been able to get along quite well in the simple peasant life of the old country. Similarly, migration from the country to large cities may increase the number of breakdowns, the rate gen¬ erally being about twice as high in urban as in rural districts. But even if all the increase were due to such causes, even if none of it represented an actual increase in the amount of defective stock in the older part of the population, the fact remains that modern science has made little or no progress with this type of disability, and that the problem is becoming greater year by year. The gravity of the situation is not measured by the mere fact that there are 300,000 patients in the institutions of the country each year. Many of these do not stay long; the turnover is rapid. Of every two patients admitted in a year, at least one is released—usually to return later, for of those discharged as recovered, it is calculated that not more than one-fourth are permanently recov¬ ered. For the others, it is merely an intermis¬ sion. Of those thus discharged as recovered, half have been in the hospital no more than six months, three-fourths for less than a year. This means that the number of persons who will, at some time during their lives, enter a hospital for mental dis- [4]