an ideal, which must be kept constantly in view, in order that all social changes, legislative and otherwise, may receive consideration, as regards their influence, direct or indirect, upon the facilitation of progress towards it.
Aside from the elimination of individuals of undesirable heredity, there are measures of a quasi-eliminatory character which may be taken to guard against deterioration of stocks. In addition to rational hygienic measures against the spread of diseases in general, special precautions are needed against venereal diseases, since these most seriously threaten the virility of the race. With these diseases, sterilization would not be a sufficient protection, inasmuch as that operation does not preclude their transmission to nonsterilized individuals. It is imperative that there be absolute prevention of intercourse between infected and noninfected persons; and this prevention is a task of gigantic proportions. Its accomplishment would probably necessitate the imprisonment (or the equivalent) of every individual case of gonorrhea and syphilis. If recent conclusions that leprosy is also a venereal disease, transmissible during a long period before it becomes recognizable, are correct, the handling of this disease, in countries where it flourishes, presents especial difficulties, since the attempt to stamp it out would involve the enforcement of more drastic
