HOOTON TELLS DOCTORS THEY CAN END HUMAN DEGENERACY

With his usual humorous pessimism on the degeneracy of the human species, Earnest A. Hooton, professor of Anthropology and author of several popular books, addressed the American College of Physicians last night at the Hotel Statler in Boston.

To set the tone for his speech, Hooton warned, "The anthropologist is a little lay-brother of the physician, and anyone who asks a little brother's advice may expect to get an earful."

Credit was given Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine whose name means "one who has the power over horses," for being the first "horse doctor" to realize the basic facts about the human organism, but the doctor of ancient Greece took a rapping for being too idealistic "in striving for the preservation of human life no matter how miserable and useless."

"Doctors Can Save Man"

If mankind is to regenerate itself from its present physical decay, Hooton insisted that the physician, who has the requisite knowledge of human functioning, should take over the job of the sociologist and the clergyman where possible, but he strictly opposed mixing medicine and politics.

"Only the medical practitioner is competent to pass biological and sociological judgment upon fitness for marriage, necessity for divorce, hereditary capabilities, expectancy of life, and cause of death," the anthropologist maintained.