PREVENTIVE STERILIZATION IN 1948

Surgical sterilization by excision of a portion of the fallopian or spermatic tubes is a form of long range preventive medicine which decreases the number of children inheriting psychosis or mental deficiency. Beginning in Indiana in 1907, laws for eugenic sterilizations at governmental expense have been passed by various legislatures until these are now on the statute books in twenty-seven states. Before the Virginia law was extensively applied, the head of the Department of Mental Hygiene carried a case into court to determine the constitutionality of the law. Not content with approval by the Supreme Court of Virginia, he eventually had it appealed to the United States Supreme Court. There, in 1927, it was confirmed that sterilization was not a cruel and unusual punishment and that provision had been made for the due process of law. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in rendering the now famous opinion said: "It is better