ELDEST SONS

Evening Star, Issue 19796, 21 February 1928, Page 11

ELDEST SONS

HANDICAP OF THE FInST-BOPN Eldest sons arc not .so lucky as they arc popularly supposed to be, writes a medical correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express.’ It is true that in worldly possession they may be superior to the other members of their Tamilly, but now Dr G. F. Still, the eminent children’s export, has shown that first children are more subject than others to certain serious defects.

They may not have, it is true, “ congenital, hypertrophic stenenosis of the pylorus,” but that does not mean that they will not in later years show serious mental defects. Eldest sons are more liable to these defects than the children who arrive later in the family.

It appears, in fact, that Nature, with its inevitable justice, has decided that eldest sons, on whom the world bestows its greatest gifts, shall inherit compensating weaknesses. The popular opinion—and it is based on the experience of countless generations—is that the first child of the family is generally more delicate than the rest. There is nothing in Dr Still’s investigations to disprove this, and, after all, it is more likely to be true than not. Why should motherhood bo exceptional and not, like everything else, improve with practice? Is it_ not possible that the first reproductive effort disclosed experiences which are in favor of a very satisfactory second and third result ? We cannot choose where we will he born in a family. If wo could wo should probably bo wise in electing to be about the third or fourth in a large family. Figures, it is well known, can bo made to show .anything, and it maybe that there is a fallacy oven in Dr Still’s statistics. Possibly some other expert will_ turn his attention to the popular belief with regard io red hair. According to this doctrine, the third child of a, family is more likely to be red-haired than any other.

The practical importance of Dr Still’s observations, if they are correct, lies, as he points out, in the fact- that those whose first offspring may not be all that was deired can be consoled by the assurance that their later children will not suffer from the defects which afflict the first-born.