DR. MATHIAS SAYS
DR. PERRY IS RIGHT.
SUPPORTS THEORY THAT EPI-
LECTICS SHOULD NOT MARRY.
Juvenile Court in Kansas City
Bears Traces of Traits
of Parents.
The opinion of Dr. L. M. Perry, superintendent of the Parsons, Kas., hospital for epilectics, to the effect that marriage between persons so afflicted should not be permitted, is shared by Dr. E. L. Mathias, probation officer of Jackson county. Dr. Perry, in a recent statement to the Kansas board of health, protested that the statute forbidding such marriages was almost a dead letter and that, for the good of the state, it should be rigidly enforced.
"Records of thousands of boys who have come under observation of this office since its establishment confirm the theory that the persistent offender bears the traces of one or more of four traits handed down by the parents," says Dr. Mathias, himself the fourth generation of a family of physicians.
"These four traits are, broadly speaking, epilepsy, idiocy, insanity and alcoholism in one or both parents. Whenever we have had the case of a boy who does wrong, time after time, and submits to no correction, he always shows the taint of one or more of these four things. This statement is taken from information regarding all the cases which have passed through this office.
"Of course, there are contributing causes, such as environment. Another feature is the early death of one or both parents from natural causes, indicating that they did not have the vitality to impart to their offspring. But the four main influences are those named.
"This statement does not take into account the occasional offenders, but those who are habitual wrongdoers. The fact that they have been born late in the life of their parents tends to the same end.
"While on this subject, it is a curious thing to note that more boys who have mothers only, go wrong, as compared with those who have only fathers to look after their welfare. A widow generally has to work all day and do the housework in the evening. The boys, as a consequence, if too small to work, are on the streets most of the time. In the evening the mother is too tired to give them much attention. A father, on the other hand, gives up his evenings to the boys and makes companions of them. This state of affairs has been proved in a careful record of thousands of cases. The boy has a better chance, three to one, with the father rather than the mother."
Dr. Mathias has had signal success in his work with boys. He makes a careful study and record of each case, both as a court record and from the medical standpoint. Hundreds of boys pass under his observing eye every month.
