This is the most innocent and harmless of the numerous suggestions made by reformers for controlling the fecundity of the poor.
Of surgical methods, castration of males, Oophorectomy or the removal of the ovaries in women, and vasectomy, or the section of the cords of the testicles, have all been suggested.
Annual castration of a certain number of the children of the popular classes was not long ago seriously proposed by Weinhold.
Boies, in his "Prisoners and Paupers," declares that surgical interference is the only method of dealing with the criminal, and preventing him from reproducing his kind.

He says:--"These organs have no function in the human organism except the creation and gratification of desire and the reproduction of the species.

Their loss has no effect upon the health, longevity, or abilities of the individual of adult years.

The removal of them therefore by destroying desire would actually diminish the wants of nature and increase the enjoyments of life for paupers.

A want removed is equivalent to a want supplied.