DR. C. W. SALEEBY
A PIONEER IN EUGENICS
Dr. C. W. Saleeby died at Apple Tree, Aldbury, near Tring, on December 9, from heart failure, at the age of 62.
Saleeby's best title to remembrance us that he was the man who made the science of eugenics understood by the man in the street. He became a eugenist through his early associations with the late Sir Francis Galton by whose instrumentality he was elected to the Council of the Sociological Society more than 30 years ago. Saleeby always spoke of Galton as "my master" and paid full tribute to him, but he realized in those early days that Galton's methods of propagating facts about health and disease in relation to the production of good human stock would never reach the common people, and he himself determined, at the peril of criticism which certainly came to him, that he would make eugenics a popular science. That in large measure he did, and if the world is better informed upon how to love in order that successive generations may be better than those which have gone before the debt is largely payable to Saleeby's memory.
Son of the late E. G. Saleeby, who founded and was for many years head of the Mount Lebanon Schools, Caleb Williams Saleeby was a grandson on his mother's side of Caleb Williams, of York, in his day a famous alienist. He was educated by his mother and also at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and at Edinburgh University, where he was first in First Class Honours for his M.B., Ch.B. He was Ettles Scholar and Scott Scholar in Obstetrics. In 1904 he proceeded M.D. For a time he was resident physician in the Maternity Hospital and Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, before spending a brief period as resident officer at the York City Dispensary. In his twenties he took up his intense study of what he called "nature and nurture," and his early experiences led him to insist as none of his predecessors had done upon the great importance of post-natal care in the science of eugenics. He waged ceaseless war upon what he called "the diseases of darkness"—drink, slums, poor and wrong feeding, ill-advised methods of dress, and so forth. "I am counsel for the unborn," he used to say to his friends. He was one of the pioneers of the movement for smoke abatement, for the better use of sunlight, rational sport, and dress reform. It has been said that one heard little of Saleeby in recent years because so many of his crusades had succeeded, and that is true.
He married 11 years ago, as his second wife, Muriel Gordon, the elder daughter of the late Rev. R. B. Billings, of Ulverston, Lancs. She shared all his interests, particularly his love of music. His first wife was Monica Mary Meynell, daughter of Wilfred Meynell and Alice Meynell, the poetess.
