Medicine: Holmes on Bastardy

A U. S. scholar who takes great interest in illegitimate births is Zoologist Samuel Jackson Holmes of the University of California. Last week he announced his analysis of the Census Bureau’s latest annual (1934) survey of U. S. bastardy. In that year out of every 1,000 childbirths, 39 babieS were born out of wedlock. Some 35,000 of them were white (20.4 per 1,000 births), 43.000 black (151.5 per 1,000 births). That was just about what Professor Holmes expected.

Professor Holmes has been collating illegitimacy statistics for years, commenting on their trend. In the November 1936 issue of Population, a British journal, he declared: “There is no escape from the conclusion that larger and larger proportions of our population are coming to be of illegitimate origin.” Causes for the increase, according to Professor Holmes: “Too much reliance . . . placed upon the efficacy of the contraceptive methods commonly employed. . . . Depression which has checked marriages and resulted in a certain amount of demoralization. . . . A change of sentiment in, regard to the stigma-attached to illegitimate origin.”