Draft of letter to Ernest V. Scribner from George Washington Gay
Description:
Former lecturer in surgery at Harvard and senior surgeon at Boston City Hospital, George W. Gay was approached by the Massachusetts Commission for expert advice on vasectomy and enforced sterilization: “The most feasible method of controlling women at present in this state is custodial supervision in an institution. Surgery offers an effectual preventative to conception, but it is not without some danger to life. With the male, however, there is a measure which is safe, practically painless, effective and free from any objections. Vasectomy … has been done a good many times with most satisfactory results to all concerned…. Your Commission is doubtless familiar with the admirable work which has been and is now being done by Dr. H. H. Goddard at Vineland, New Jersey…. Having spent a day there last year I became much interested in the results of his labors. They seemed to furnish undeniable evidence of the folly of allowing defectives to procreate. A large proportion of them are of no comfort or use to themselves or to society in general and moreover very many of them, as you well know, become public charges, for the support of whom you and I and everybody else who pays taxes have to foot the bills. This is all wrong and any experiment which is reasonable and practicable is worthy of trial.” Draft of letter from George Washington Gay in Worcester, Massachusetts to E[rnest] V. Scribner in Boston, dated August 5, 1910
The Harvard Medical Library does not hold copyright on all materials in this collection. For use information, consult Public Services at chm@hms.harvard.edu
Contact host institution for more information.
