354 3. Die höheren Lebenaeinheiten. 



testants, with the object of dividing them according to race, tue Catholics 

 being (probably) chiefly Irish. 



The mental capacity of the inebriates is then compared with that of the 

 general population, estimated from what is known of the per centage of de- 

 fective children in schools. If these data may be taken as sufticient, the 

 result appears in a correlation of between • 7 and • 8 between alcoholism and 

 mental defect. On similar reasoning it is concluded that these is a slightly 

 lower correlation between mental defect and Prostitution, 44 per cent. of the 

 women inebriates being prostitutes. The Catholics are much less educated 

 than the Protestant^, and have an intensity of alcoholism nearly 50 per cent. 

 greater; this is probably due to difference of race. The relations of mental 

 defect, education, age and alcoholism are next examined. It is found that there 

 is practically no decrease of mental capacity with age, and that age is very 

 slightly related with effective education, which strongly suggests that mental 

 defect is not the result of alcoholism. When the inebriates are compared 

 grade for grade as regards education, there is no relation between their 

 mental capacity and their ages, hence more prolonged alcoholism does not 

 sensibly diminish the mental capacity. That this absence of correlation is not 

 due to the older inebriates having taken to alcohol later in life is shown by 

 the greater number of convictions among the older inmates. Several pages 

 are devoted to the relations of Prostitution and physical and mental capacity 

 with alcoholism, leading to the conclusion that the extreme forms of alcoholism 

 are the result of a strong physical nature under little mental control. It is 

 therefore urged that such unbalanced persons should be segregated from 

 puberty, for the statistics show that except when childless they have a high 

 fertility. It is pointed out that there is an apparent contradiction between 

 this conclusion and that reached in a former paper (Elderton and Pearson, 

 Eugenics Lab. Memoir 10, summarised in this Zentralblatt, 1910, p. 507, 

 No. 1067), in which it appeared that there was no correlation between alco- 

 holism in the parents and mental defect in the children. This apparent 

 contradiction is explained by the assumption that the mentally defective usually 

 become extreme alcoholists, making up less than 0,1 per cent. of the popu- 

 lation, and that the more moderate use of alcohol studied in the former paper 

 has no necessary relation with mental defect. Doncaster (Cambridge). 



982) Rosenbach, F. und Eschker (Chir. Klinik der Charite), Experi- 

 menteller Beitrag zur Pathogenese des Ulcus rotundum. 

 (Arch. f. klin. Chir. 94,3. p. 481-495. 1911.) 

 Experimentelle Untersuchungen von Talma und vonYzeren haben ergeben, 

 daß der Pyloruskrampf die Ursuche des Ulcus rotundum sein kann. Machen 

 aber derartige durch Gefäßkrämpfe bedingte Anämien wirklich Geschwüre im 

 Magen, die über längere Zeit durch Fortdauer der Schädlichkeit bestehen 

 bleiben, so erscheint es durchaus plausibel, daß nun durch erneut hinzutretende, 

 mechanische, thermische und chemische Reize vom Magen aus Weiterver- 

 änderungen am Magenulcus vor sich gehen, die nun ihrerseits eine Heilung 

 des Geschwürs unmöglich machen. Hier wäre zunächst an die Arteriosklerose 

 zu denken. Um nun durch Gefäßkrämpfe Ulcera zu erzeugen, haben sich die 

 Verff. einer einfachen Methode bedient, mit der es in der Tat gelingt, solitäre 

 Ulcera in der Pylorusgegend zu erzielen. Nach dem Vorgange von Beneke 

 injizierten sie von der Stammlösung des Suprarenin-Höchst in die Pylorus- 

 gegend. Wie die angeführten Protokolle der Versuchstiere zeigen, haben alle 

 mit Adrenalin behandelten Tiere ein positives Resultat ergeben, und es liegt der 

 Schluß nahe, daß die entstandenen geschwürigen Prozesse zweifellos die Folge 



