ffect, if the cured
syphilitics had a permanently impaired germ-plasm--a proposition which
is very doubtful. But the framers of the law apparently were not
influenced by that aspect of the case, and in any event such a method of
procedure is too round-about to be commendable. Criminals as such, and
syphilitics, should certainly be removed from the workings of this law,
and dealt with in some other way. However, no operations are reported as
having been performed under the act.

New Jersey's law, which has never been operative, represents a much more
advanced statute; it applies to inmates of state reformatories,
charitable and penal institutions (rapists and confirmed criminals) and
provides for a board of expert examiners, as well as for legal
procedure.

New York's law, applying to inmates of state hospitals for the insane,
state prisons, reformatories and charitable institutions, is also fairly
well drawn, providing for a board of examiners, and surrounding the
operation with legal safeguards. No operations have been performed under
it.

North Dakota includes inmates of state prisons, reform school, school
for feeble-minded and asylum for the insane in its law, which is
administered by a special board. Although an emergency clause was tacked
on, when it was passed in 1913, putting it into effect at once, no
operations have been performed under it.

Michigan's law applies to all inmates of state institutions maintained
wholly or in part at public expense. It lacks many of the provisions of
an ideal law, but is being applied to some of the feeble-minded.

The Kansas law, which provides suitable court procedure, embraces
inmates of all state institutions intrusted with the care or custody of
habitual criminals, idiots, epileptics, imbeciles or insane, an
"habitual criminal" being defined as "a person who has been convicted of
some felony involving moral turpitude." It has been a dead letter ever
since it was placed on the statute books.

Wisconsin[89] provides for a special board to consider the cases of "all
inmates of state and county institutions for criminal, insane,
feeble-minded and epileptic persons," prior to their release. The law
has some good features, and has been applied to a hundred or more
feeble-minded persons.

In 1911 the American Breeders' Association appointed a "Committee to
Study and Report on the Best Practical Means of Cutting Off the
Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population," and