Some Genetical Problems in Mental Deficiency

Sterilization Policy, Economic Expediency and Fundamental Inheritance, with Especial Reference to the Inheritance of the Intelligence Quotient

In a social system where responsibility for the care and support of children rests with the parents, society is justified in imposing restrictions designed to prevent the births of children to a socially incompetent person who is unable to assume such responsibility. Owing to the overcrowded conditions of state institutions for the care of the mentally defective, it is certain that patients committed to such institutions are scarcely able to provide satisfactory care and support for themselves, and would not be able to provide adequately for any children that they might produce. On this basis, society is quite justified in enacting the regulation, as, according to Popenoe (1, 2), has been done in one State, that no patient who has been committed to a state institution for the care of the feeble-minded shall be allowed to leave the institution without having first been sterilized.

The development of Penrose's ideas in genetics and psychiatry

After I had agreed to give this talk about Lionel Penrose's contributions to genetics and mental deficiency I realized what an impossible task I had undertaken. His research career in these areas spanned a period of more than forty years, during the whole of which he was making important and significant contributions on an extraordinarily diverse range of topics. Furthermore, during this period both of these subjects advanced from an almost pre-scientific infantile state to rigorous and critical disciplines, and Penrose's work played no small part in this development.