124 



ZOOLOGY 



Injury con- 

 tinued to 

 third and 

 fourth 

 generations 



Results with 

 fowls con- 

 tradictory : 

 the offspring 

 of alcohol- 

 ized birds 

 superior 



tain substances or conditions, so that the individuals 

 they produce, if they produce any, are below the normal 

 standard. 



7. The germ plasm is the vehicle of life which con- 

 tinues from generation to generation. Will it recover 

 from the injury, or will the effects continue "unto the 

 third and fourth generation"? Stockard records that 

 : 'the mating records of the descendants of the alcohol- 

 ized guinea pigs, though they themselves were not 

 treated with alcohol, compare in some respects even 

 more unfavorably with the control records than do the 

 data from the directly alcoholized animals." To be 

 specific, of 194 matings of non-alcoholized offspring of 

 alcoholized parents, 55 resulted negatively or in early 

 abortions ; 18 stillborn litters of 41 young occurred, and 

 17 per cent of these stillborn young were deformed. 

 One hundred and twenty living litters contained 199 

 young, but 94 of these died within a few days and almost 

 15 per cent of them were deformed ; while 105 survived, 

 and 7 of these showed eye deformities. 



These defects continue even to later generations. Dr. 

 Stockard goes on : "The records of the matings of F 2 

 animals (F 2 means second filial generation, or grand- 

 children of the original parents) are still worse, higher 

 mortality and more pronounced deformities, while the 

 few F 3 individuals .which have survived are generally 

 weak and in many instances appear to be quite sterile 

 even though paired with vigorous, prolific, normal 

 mates." 



8. After reading the accounts of Stockard's experi- 

 ments, we turn to the still more recent work of Dr. 

 Raymond Pearl on fowls, and are astonished to find 

 that his results appear to be contradictory. The 

 methods used with the fowls were parallel with those 



