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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Race - 6. Racial Characteristics - 2. Biological Susceptibility to Disease
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Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 143
hereditary susceptibility. Also a report by Love and Davenport, on the
incidence of these diseases among World War troops, indicates that
Negroes are no more susceptible to both these diseases together but are
more likely to get the more dangerous pneumonia and less likely to get
the less dangerous influenza. This suggests that when influenza strikes, it
takes a more serious form among Negroes because their constitution is not
so strong—^which, of course, does not indicate a hereditary trait—^but that
Negroes are no more susceptible in the first instance to pneumonia-influenza.
In trying to determine whether Negroes have any special susceptibility
to mental disease, there are even more difficulties than in the case of
physical disease.® The only information comes from hospitals, which vary
greatly in their policy respecting admittance. Some of the mental diseases
have a known physical basis j
for others no physical basis has been discov-
ered. When Pollock, for example, tried to show that Negroes were more
susceptible to dementia praecox, by pointing out that in Illinois, Negroes
had a rate of 57.1 as compared to 15.6 for whites, it was easy to disprove
his conclusion.^® In New York, the discrepancy between the races was not
so great.^^ In both Illinois and New York, Negroes were concentrated in
cities, which generally have a rate twice as high as the rural areas. Negroes
were also concentrated in those age and income groups with the highest
rates of dementia praecox. Further, the Negro population of New York and
Chicago contained a much larger proportion of recent migrants, and
instability seems to have a connection with dementia praecox.
Another type of difliculty in the way of determining whether there is
any hereditary difference in susceptibility is illustrated by the data on
general paresis. The rate for Negroes in New York State (1929-1931)
was 25.0 as compared to 7.0 for whites. The ratio of the Negro rate to the
white rate remained high when considered for New York City alone (3.9
to i) and when standardized for age (4.1 to i). The explanation seems
to be simply that New York Negroes have much more syphilis than whites,
and syphilis is the major cause of paresis. Thus, Negroes have a greater
incidence of paresis because they have more syphilis, but no racial suscepti-
bility to syphilis has been demonstrated. In view of all these complications,
recent students of mental disease have tended to avoid completely the
question as to whether Negroes have any special susceptibilities to mental
disease.
In general, we must conclude that no innate susceptibilities or immunities
to specific diseases on the part of the Negro have yet been conclusively
demonstrated. Disease is the result of a complicated interplay of hereditary
and environmental factors, and no one has yet succeeded in holding constant
*At this point we shall consider only the question as to whether there are hereditary
racial difFerences in mental disease. For other aspects of mental disease, see Chapter 44,
Section 3.
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