844 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



regained when continued cultivation was carried on at lower tern- 

 peratures." * 



In still more recent experiments Gley and Charriu f have vacci- 

 nated a certain number of male rabbits against the effects of the 

 bacillus of blue pus (Bacillus pyocyaneus) by injecting into them atten- 

 uated cultures. These males then mated with females while in heat. 

 The greater number of the offspring died before birth or soon after ; 

 those which lived were atrophied, more or less deformed, but in some 

 cases endowed with an immunity from the effects of the bacillus of 

 blue pus. 



"It is evident," says Cuenot, in commenting on this experiment, 

 " that the attenuated infection communicated to the fathers by vacci- 

 nation had profoundly deranged the structure of the male germ plasm ; 

 hence the numerous abortions and malformations of their descendants. 

 It is exactly the same as in the case of females alone which have before 

 fecundation received injections of poisons: they either abort, or the 

 young do not grow and die at an early age." 



That the effects of alcoholism and other forms of intoxication with 

 poisons, etc., produced on individuals are inherited by the next gen- 

 eration is allowed by M. Cuenot. Whether the effect upon the system 

 saturates through and affects the germ plasm or not does not affect 

 the fact that such lesions are acquired during the lifetime of the indi- 

 vidual. As he says : — 



" Intoxication of the organism which is not fatal likewise reacts 

 on the germ plasm, which may undergo profound modifications. 

 Alcoholism, for example, which exaggerates in a way so characteris- 

 tic the diatheses of parents (insanity, cirrhosis, etc.) also alters the 

 sexual cells. The children of parents both affected with alcoholism, 

 when born, are sickly, unhealthy, presenting a special predisposition 

 to consumption and to nervous troubles." 



It is possible, adds Cuenot, that the celebrated observations of 

 Brown-Sequard, confirmed by Dupuy and Obersteiner, on the heredity 

 of epilepsy produced in guinea-pigs, is also explained by a partial in- 



* Bacteriology in its General Relations. By H. L. Russell. Amer. Naturalist, 

 December, 1893, p. 1060. 



t Gley et Charrin, Influences here'ditaires experimentales. Comptes Rendus de 

 l'Acade'mie des Sciences, Paris, CX VII., 1893. Quoted from L. Cuenot in " Revue 

 gen. des Sciences, pures et appliquees," 15 Fe'v., 1894. This and other cases are 

 cited by M. Cuenot in favor of Weismannism, but we think they directly prove 

 the contrary ; they illustrate the direct action of a change of environment 

 during the lifetime of the individual, the changes being inherited by the suc- 

 ceeding generation. 



