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The Causes of Juvenile Delinquency and Modern Degeneration
Published in Journal of the American Academy of Applied Nutrition, Summer 1947, pp. 33-37.
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Introduction
This paper will be limited to a discussion of the biologic factors involved in modern degenerations.
In presenting this danger signal as the next step for human betterment, I am reminded of the adage that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Professor James Needham, Cornell University, states in the preface of his splendid book on Zoology, “This book is an exposition of human nature, without any plans for its improvement. The lack of such plans is due to my fear that Mother Nature would not be very regardful of them; that she would go right along making our successors after her regular patterns and that they will continue to behave very much as we have done.”
There is, however, this essential difference. To the extent to which degenerations of body form, physically and microscopically, are starvation expressions, it is apparent that this correction may provide for the return of a new generation with its normal function. This is my hope.
Needham says that, “In all things fundamental to the welfare of living beings their ways are our way” and in discussing man in his biological aspects he says, “If there be one fact of more profound significance than any other, more basic to understanding of our place in the living world, it is the fact that we share Life’s most fundamental characteristics with all living things, both plants and animals.” Reproduction, he states, involves two parents, each of which contributes one cell from its own body for the formation of a new offspring.
In chapter 25, page 476, of my book entitled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in which I discuss how Mother Nature made us, I have presented comparative data on man’s place amongst seven other vertebrate embryos. In their early embryonic life they are very similar, indeed seem to be identical, in physical form. In the second stage, the salamander and fish have taken on forms resembling their living forms, the others are still comparable. It is only in the third stage that they all differentiate into their diverse living forms. For the zoologist this is conclusive evidence of their common origin. Needham says regarding instinct that it is “inherited behavior.” Can we understand this? He also states that instinct is as automatic as breathing. Being innate, it is ready for instant action and is like superior wisdom, for it changes as the body grows.
I have illustrated this in chapter 25, page 479, in the story of the caterpillar’s life which passes through four forms on the food taken in only one stage. They change from fertilized eggs to leaf eaters nine months after the eggs are laid on a twig of a cherry tree, then to a cocoon and pupa and finally to adult moths, male and female, which mate at night, thus producing a new generation beginning as fertilized eggs.
These and associated data are fundamental to an understanding of the origin and nature of human degeneration and of behavior problems, because of our common inheritance with other living forms.
Man is not freed from inheritance by his changes in growth and form but must have well developed inhibitions which are very strong but which his parents have predetermined by their preconception nutrition. Only by this means can man be released from his present precarious dilemma.
Professor Beadle of California Institute of Technology has thrown important light on the role of chromosomes and genes in fertilization processes. This will be presented later.
Discussion
In order to see what is happening to mankind today it is necessary to note his origin and history. For millions and millions of years prior to his advent, the earth was populated by myriads of forms of life divided into two sexes. These forms of life were the possessors of only two dominating instincts, namely, the striving for food and the urge or desire to procreate. No other functions had developed. Man, with his relatively recent appearance, and with his reasoning brain in various degrees of development, is an added biologic growth and is a function of prenatal and postnatal nutrition and is their measure.
Our immediate concern is for the lower levels of these developmental processes as revealed by a study of fourteen primitive races in various stages of nutrition. The conspicuous expressions of degeneration of declining members of the culture are expressed in the large assortment of so-called diseases, which are degenerations of the human physical structures. These go back to inadequate reproduction, resulting from inadequate previous parental nutrition. The place in our era, for the prevention of these degeneration defects, is at those points in the formation of the human embryo and the body structure, where the defects are first established. In my opinion, the care and treatment of interferences in all its formative stages, should be the responsibility of large groups of especially trained men and women. Up to the present the efforts of these men and women have been only to nurse, repair and replace these grossly defective structures. These groups should include the members of the medical and dental professions and the myriads of healing cults.
Our modernized units of society are poorly prepared to grasp these facts. Note the horror at the announcement of modern gynecologists that 25% of human babies are not physically perfect enough to be born alive, and that of those born alive, 15% are so defective that they will be dead or be a burden on society in fifteen years.
We are primarily concerned with the necessary procedure for stemming this tide of automatic destruction. Modern thinking is based on modern teaching and assumes that individually we all have the same opportunity to be correctly conceived and be capable of becoming normal individuals. Conception is grossly misunderstood. Many assume every mother is capable of creating and producing a normal individual and that every father also has his complete capacity to fertilize. Modern biological investigations however, clearly demonstrate that various animals and humans may be in a condition of nutritional deficiency such that their reproductive germ cells are incompletely organized. This may apply to either parent or both. Farmers see the development of blindness and club feet in the lambs of a sheep herd or the blind calves of the dairy herd developing following an extended drought.
Contrary to the accepted view of the controlling forces of heredity, the offspring of these blind individuals can produce normal eyes and normal body structure in the next generation, provided the preconception nutrition of both individuals has been adequate to develop normal reproductive germ cells. Modern biology reveals that thousands of ultra-microscopic genes are concerned in the process of fertilization of the female ovum. Further, the defective human nutrition can modify the physical development at any time during the growth of the body as a result of inadequate nutrition.
The fourteen primitive groups which I have studied demonstrate these same reactions. These groups had accumulated very definite wisdom as to requirements for their behaviour if physical perfection was to be produced.
In order to make dependable deductions from accumulated data an extended variety of environments, altitudes and temperatures have been selected for study to learn the controlling forces in these fourteen primitive races. The primitive groups studied were partly selected because of their accessibility but primarily for their capability of demonstrating such structural defects as might be associated with changes in the nutritional factors, that might produce discernable structure changes or illustrate behaviour characteristics. Many of the abnormal structural forms have variations that are readily recorded photographically. It is important that the same structural defects are produced experimentally in both humans and animals. The record of these variations in physical form and behaviour as found in these primitive races and experimental animals is recorded in book form under the title, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects. These data are supported by many thousands of photographs and clinical reports. Many moderns need only to use a hand mirror to answer involved questions without discussion or argument.
The prevention program is clearly indicated by both the wisdom of the more successful primitive races and by observing animal life. For millions of years wild animals, made of the same material as the humans, have lived and reproduced normally. They roam areas of the earth which are covered with green vegetation, including seasonable varieties. What these plants need is provided in the soil and hence is available for the plant-eating animal. Nature in the wild harbors the fertility of the soil. When it is gone the plant disappears and so does the animal and we are, or may be, one of the animals involved. So every structure has to be made and retained by repair material.
Some primitive races went long distances to get repair material. They know why eyes could not be built or continue to see without a substance we call Vitamin A and they know where to get it. Just so every organ and tissue of our body must be made and fed.
In addition to building and repairing our bodies, various other functions must be recognized. Throughout life and for all time, animal life, whether of the sea, the earth or the air, had two controlling forces governing behaviour, namely, hunger and sex urge. Man alone has sensed the need to provide control for these forces. We have a social group we call Delinquents, or juvenile Delinquents, who have certain characteristics in common. They are increasing in number and are becoming both more destructive and ruthless and often more animalistic. The lack of concern for the real causes of Juvenile Delinquency and means for control is indeed heart-breaking.
Buckle undertook one hundred years ago to write the history of civilization for that date. He then identified the forces which control advancement, as being natural laws, namely, “Climate, soil, food and aspects of nature as being the principal causes of intellectual progress.” This view was not orthodox and was not accepted but met with severe criticism. Modern civilization was not ready for his findings.
Vast social studies in many parts of the world now reveal that delinquents are primarily defectives, produced by parents one or both of whom was nutritionally unprepared for reproduction. This constitutes one of the saddest facts facing our modern civilization, namely, the apparent utter recklessness and indifference with which our so-called intelligent men and women produce the conception and development of a new generation, which contains many with physical, mental and moral defects. They apparently are indifferent to all forces except the inherent sex urge.
The American population is progressively requiring more hospitalization, due to the increasing number and severity of the signs of increasing degeneration. Of these the mental defects are the most severe and common. Approximately seven hundred thousand beds are required for the insane of the United States. Our daily news items record an alarming and progressively increasing number of the so called Juvenile Delinquents. Who are they and why? As individuals they have physical characteristics in common. They are mentally retarded and tend to have restricted or narrow nostrils and laterally depressed dental arches. They have lower than normal sex control.
As an approach, note the recorded data of Dr. J. B. Minor, famous authority on mental states and its relation to morality. He states in his Presidential address, (Proceedings and addresses of the American Association for the Study of the Feeble Minded, 1919, page 54). “If morality and intellect are finally demonstrated to be corelated through the whole range of individual differences, it is probably the most profoundly significant fact with which society has to deal.“
The relation of the formative phase to the moral phase or behaviour has been studied critically by Chassell. This study indicates an intimate relationship between physical defects and delinquency in their various phases, including major crime which constitutes one of the most alarming aspects of our modern problems in social degeneration. Her studies summarize reports from workers in different fields in several countries. She summarizes her findings as follows. “The corelation between delinquency and mental inferiority as found in the case of feeble minded groups, is clearly positive and tends to be marked in degree.“
Burt, who has made an extended study over an extended period, of the problems of the backward child and the delinquent child in England, states, in his summary and conclusions, with regard to the origin of backwardness in the child, “Both at London and at Birmingham between 60% and 70% belong to the innately dull catagory…in the majority the outstanding cause is the general inferiority of intellectual capacity, presumably inborn and frequently hereditary.“
The criminal aspect of modern Juvenile Delinquency has been strongly emphasized in the daily press and police reports. Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the F. B. I. has issued many reports. The comparative crimes of defective boys and girls is striking. While sex crimes are high in boys, they are higher in girls. Boys’ crimes include stealing property such as autos. That the members of the F. B. I. are not dealing with single misdemeanors is illustrated by the 1946 report which shows that 54.2% of arrests for crimes, represented persons who already had fingerprint cards on file in the identification division of the F. B.I.
The fact that British reports reveal that 40% of girls applying for marriage certificates are already pregnant strongly emphasizes their reckless exposure. The modern trend of degeneration is strongly towards a return to the two controlling instincts, hunger and sex. Man’s margin of safety is small even when he is completely formed. His recent rise above the purely animal level is biologically the most readily lost.
It is most important and tragic that the biology of reproduction is so nearly a closed book in the minds of our world population today. It has always been prevented from having its place in modern culture, though it was so consistently taught and obeyed in many primitive races. Girls were protected by early marriages and were taught what foods to eat before reproduction became a problem. They were also informed as to where to obtain these foods. Too frequent conceptions were prevented by the plural wife system; three years between births were frequent primitive rules, boys were trained for character and taught to have profound respect for womanhood. Failure to respect this admonition was often punishable by death in primitive tribes. Now what have we? We have the report by the author of Sin and Science that the American Government supplied protective equipment for boys returning from the war at the rate of fifty millions of outfits per month. This apparently was for protection from communicable disease.
The laws of biological control of reproduction involve the many genes and chromosomes which create new units of life in plants, birds and animals, regardless of the size or form of the species. For example, if both the male and female parent furnishing the genes for a new animal or human unit, fail to provide those for the color of the hair and eyes, the new unit will be an albino, with white hair and white eyes (Chapter 25, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration).
What is the environment of our boys and girls today? They are not albinos but what other genes were lacking in either their father’s or their mother’s contribution to their armament? Do they have the defensive armor for the inhibitions required by this complex animal unit, or will he and she be controlled largely by the two primitive instincts of all life. This boy and girl are in a strange and abnormal environment where every appeal is to these two animal instincts. Where will the pair spend the evening? Every device of scientific advertising is built around the primitive instincts. Something to eat, and sex. (Education, nutrition and legislation alone, can save modern men and modern women and their boys and their girls for noble human purposes).
The grave problem of a brain injury, due to its compression resulting in its serious underdevelopment, as a result of checking prematurely the skull’s growth is strikingly illustrated by the studies reported on page 411, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. These were made by Dr. Wayne Brehm of Columbus, Ohio. He is associated with two large hospitals and is specializing in obstetrics in health and at birth. He gives the history of 540 obstetrical cases divided into six groups of ninety each. The groups differed in the reinforcement of the mother’s nutrition. This reinforcement diet consisted in group one of giving the mother Vitamin D as Viosterol (which I have always vigorously opposed. It was patented by Steinbach of the University of Wisconsin and was primarily a fish oil exposed to ultra violet light). Calcium was given with this. Group two received Calcium alone. Group 3 received Viosterol alone. Group 4 received Calcium and Cod Liver Oil. Group 5 received Cod Liver Oil alone. Group 6 received no reinforcement of the diet. For those receiving the Calcium and Viosterol there was extensive calcification in the placentae, marked closing of the fontanelle (the normal opening in the top of the infant’s skull) and marked calcification in the kidneys. For those receiving Calcium alone there was no placental calcification, slight closure of the fontanelle and no calcification of the kidneys. Group 3, receiving Viosterol alone had marked placental calcification, moderate closure of the fontanelle and no calcification of the kidneys. Those receiving Cod Liver alone had very slight placental calcification, slight fontanelle closure and no calcification in the kidneys. Those receiving no reinforcement had very slight placental calcification, no fontanelle closure and no calcification of the kidneys.
The effects on the mother and child were striking. For the mother there was a prolonging of labor in group one, and at birth the fetal heads were less moulded, not being able to adjust their shape to the shape of the birth tube. These infants had a general appearance of ossification or post maturity. The later history of these defective infants presents a series of grave growth and personality affections, they age prematurely and are grossly backward in mentality and have behaviour complexes. This history strongly emphasizes the great desirability of using nature’s food instead of modern patented synthetic substitutes.
It is of interest that this process of producing grave modern physical degeneration is so important that it has been one of the urgent topics discussed at the June 1947 American Medical Association Convention. The public at large is warned by the Doctors there regarding the harm that so called Vitamin D can do by causing poisoning and even death. Dr. C.H. Slocum of Rochester, Minn. is quoted as reporting in substance, that this preparation used in the treatment of rheumatism and in children for the prevention and treatment of rickets, and which can be bought by any one without prescription, was said to be responsible for the poisoning of fifty patients. He also cited seven known deaths from this preparation and six deaths attributed to it. Further that the dose capable of causing poisoning differed with individuals and could be caused by as little as 50,000 units a day. Symptoms of poisoning included nausea, vomiting, loss of weight, nervousness, insomnia and nervous lapses. Excessive doses of this preparation were said to cause wide spread deposition of calcium, both in the bones and in the soft tissues of the body.
This is our sadly misguided modern civilization. Many patented processes are based on misconceptions of Mother Nature’s Fundamental Laws of Life. Nature’s Vitamin D is not too concentrated.
The task for the American Academy of Applied Nutrition will call for the highest expression of human cultural development. Its members have two great functions: first, to produce physical bodies that are completely built and second, to maintain bodily organs free from disease. This means teeth without dental caries or pyorrhea; tonsils without abscesses, hearts without murmurs, humans without allergies, boys and girls with adequate control of the animal instincts. This will provide a band of men and women with too high a sense of honor to set traps, by using the two fundamental and often the strongest appeals of life, to lure our boys and girls to their moral breakdown.
Our modern civilization is in an abyss and can only be rescued by providing both parents-to-be with the information necessary for proper conception, and easy access to the foods required. It is almost too late to obtain these in sufficient quantities to supply our modern civilization. Fortunately the sea near the ice caps where the whales and sea animal life go by instinct to get these foods, can supply an almost inexhaustible base. We must learn to conserve soil fertility, for without it even our grazing animals will die. We must build a population of men and women with far too much character to despoil our cherished progeny of childlife, a civilization that will disdain to capitalize on Nature’s fundamental instincts for selfish gain.
Are we worthy to be a part of this new type of culture?
Editor’s note: Since the era in which this article was written, society’s understanding of respectful terminology when referring to ethnic and cultural groups has evolved, and some readers may be offended by references to “primitive” people and other out-of-date terminology. However, this article has been archived as a historical document, and so we have chosen to use Price’s exact words in the interest of authenticity. No disrespect to any cultural or ethnic group is intended.