Sterilization has been discussed pro and con by those knowing of what they speak or write and by those misinformed or having no knowledge of the subject. The sanest views that have so far reached The News' attention are those expressed in a recent issue of the Brattleboro Reformer, Without a doubt the writer of the letter knows more than a smattering of the much discussed subject. We voice a hearty approval of his or her well expressed statements. The letter:

"I have been a nurse and have studied some medical works on the side, and have had charge at times of hospital wards in state asylums in two states outside Vermont, and have worked at Brattleboro Retreat and have observed many cases of insanity and of the disease that Dr. Houghton and other doctors and people would have you believe can be stamped out or controlled by sterilization that it is only in institutions and places of detention where this method would be used.

"People already in detention are not a menace to the public from reproduction and it is outsideJ of these institutions that it would have to be applied to be of any use in checking the disease. We already have laws that where cases of this disease became known to physicians they are reported and means taken to eradicate it as much as possible. We know that this disease is bad enough, perhaps no worse, but like tuberculosis, cancer, and leprosy, is has existed since the records of the human race began, and no method has yet been devised to stamp out these diseases.

"As far as sterilization goes, after all have been sterilized who have a taint of this disease, and it is hereditary, the fact remains that it is still transmittable by contact of mucous surfaces, and these sterilized people would still have to be segregated in institutions. This is supposed to be a blood disease, and perhaps cancer is also. Certain injections into the blood are helpful, recently discovered chalmougra oil has cured many cases of leprosy, and cancer has been cured by radium and other means where it can be reached, and tuberculosis helped by modern methods; but the fact remains that none of these diseases can be eradicated or materially prevented until the germs that cause them can be isolated and effectively killed in the human body. The claim that people can be restored after this operation is of very little weight. Sterilization and other costly and useless impositions of the public through some pet law forced through the legislature are still in the same class as the persecution of witches."