THE American Fertility Society was organized in 1944 after a period of economic and of
reproductive depression, with the declared aim" for the study of sterility." Parkes tells how the
British government, earnestly concerned about a birth rate that in the thirties had fallen
below the replacement level, appointed a Royal Commission on Population. Leading
geneticists expressed dim views about the seeming decline of fertility in western women, but
before any remedies could be proposed the worldwide" baby boom" of the mid-forties …