ALCOHOL, DISEASE, AND HEREDITARY DEFECTS 291 



way conditions may be controlled, check experiments carried on, 

 and data obtained that are free from a multitude of possible 

 interpretations. Heredity in human beings is essentially the same 

 as heredity in animals, and should it be found quite generally 

 that alcoholism in the lower animals is productive of heritable 

 defects, it is very probable that the same conclusion could be 

 applied also to man. 



The only other substance which evidence points to as probably 

 causing injury to human germ plasm is lead. In 1860 Constan- 

 tine Paul reported that women workers in lead have an unusually 

 high number of abortions, stillbirths, and children who are 

 unhealthy and die early. Much more indicative of a true hered- 

 itary influence is the fact that, when the father alone worked in 

 lead a high percentage of abortions or early deaths occurred in the 

 offspring. Of 32 pregnancies in women who were not lead work- 

 ers but whose husbands were exposed to lead there were twelve 

 abortions or stillbirths, and of the 20 children born alive, 8 died in 

 the first year, 4 in the second and 5 in the third. 



The bad effects of plumbism have been discussed by several 

 writers (Ballard, Lewin, Rennert, Bourneville, Roques, Oliver) 

 but in most cases the reports dealt with maternal plumbism, or 

 with data in which the maternal and paternal effects are not 

 distinguished. It has been shown that lead is absorbed by the 

 foetus from the mother and that it may also pass to the offspring 

 through the mother's milk. In maternal plumbism, therefore, 

 the offspring are doubtless directly injured by the lead itself. 



Even when women who have discontinued work in lead con- 

 tinue to have an unusually large number of abortions the result 

 may be due either to persistence of the poison in the mother's 

 blood, or to the general impairment of their health as a result of 

 the poison. 



According to Oliver, "the effects of lead in this particular 

 direction [i. e., on offspring] are worse when both parents are 

 affected, next when it is the mother alone who has been brought 

 under the influence of lead; but there is evidence to show that 

 lead impregnation of the male is extremely prejudicial to the 



