524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in increasing refinement, and there will ever be need of a language 

 of signs, so the lieiglit of specialization can only end in mak- 

 ing every day a holiday indeed. Not that every day will be free 

 from labor, or consecrated to a saint, but that the intricate world 

 of things, of feelings, and of thoughts in which we live, will 

 become so full of ever-present meaning to us that their stimuli 

 will find daily rather than occasional expression, with a single or 

 half-dozen friends instead of a multitude, with shorter hours of 

 labor and longer hours of health, with music rather than with 

 fire-crackers, with ever-thoughtful kindness instead of formal 

 ceremony, and finally with pure and noble daily inspiration for 

 living rather than a funeral pageant. 



NEW FACTS IN ALCOHOLIC HEREDITY. 



By T. D. CEOTHERS, M. D. 



SOME years ago I examined two inmates of the Deaf and 

 Dumb Asylum, at Hartford, who from birth had distinct 

 symptoms of acute intoxication. Both were boys, aged nine and 

 thirteen years, who walked with a staggering gait and great mus- 

 cular incoordination. One had a demented grin, and nodded 

 continuously whenever he saw any one looking at him. The 

 other had a dull, vacant stare, and congested, blear-eyed appear- 

 ance. He was very irritable, and sensitive to observation, trem- 

 bling with anger from any little cause. These and many other 

 signs of intoxication were present, and had been noted from birth. 

 The parents of both were inebriates. These cases aroused my 

 attention, and since then I have gathered many notes and histo- 

 ries of similar cases. 



Greatly to my surprise, I have found that these cases were not 

 uncommon, especially in asylums and hospitals, and also in active 

 life. Many of them are not so marked, and others require some pe- 

 culiar conditions or circumstances to bring out these symptoms. 



The history of the cases I have obtained may be divided into 

 two classes : one, in which the symptoms of intoxication are i)res- 

 ent all the time ; the other, in which these symptoms only aj^pear 

 from some peculiar circumstances or exciting causes. 



In the first class, some prominent defect, such as idiocy, imbe- 

 cility, and congenital deformity, is present, giving the case a dis- 

 tinctness irrespective of the signs of intoxication. Hence, these 

 symptoms of drunkenness are not separate from other defects in 

 observation. Thus, in a prominent family, one of the children, 

 an imbecile, had all the suspicious hesitancy of manner, also the 

 walk, of a drunkard. 



