276 HEREDITY AND DISEASE 



that the nervous system is naturally most liable to be affected ; 

 they may be epileptic, paralytic, idiotic, insane, or sterile. The 

 variety of result is great, but it is never on the right side. 



Dismal statistics on the subject are only too abundant, but 

 a few cases must suffice. In ten families of marked alcoholic 

 habit, Dr. Thomson of Alva (1858) found nineteen dipsomaniacs 

 alive, eighteen deaths in consequence of the habit, ten insane, 

 and three epileptics. In one family history the intemperate 

 father died from a burn while drunk ; his two sons and a 

 nephew died in delirium tremens ; another nephew, four grand- 

 sons, and three granddaughters were alcoholists. Out of 

 eighty-three epileptic children at the Salpetriere in Paris, sixty 

 had drunken parents (cited by Debierre, p. 27). 



(4) In interpreting the dismal statistics it is a mistake to 

 attribute the whole result to the hereditary influence of alcoholist 

 parents. It is necessary to make allowances for cases in which 

 the offspring " have been in the vineyard too." They may be 

 affected through the mother before and after birth by becoming 

 early accustomed to doses of alcohol, and obviously by sug- 

 gestion and imitation, and also by the persistence of the super- 

 organic conditions which " drove the parents to drink." The 

 resultants of these factors may augment the inherited bias or 

 the inherited germinal defect. Where there has been no direct 

 inheritance the nurture-results may simulate the results of 

 transmission. 



The Ostiak forces vodka down his child's throat, and the 

 same happens nearer home. " Whisky- babies " occur in 

 Merrie England. But the mischief may begin further back ; 

 even before birth the mother may poison her child. 



Fere and others have described the disturbing effects which 

 followed injections of small quantities of alcohol into the develop- 

 ing egg of the fowl. Mairet, quoted by Debierre, found that 

 the offspring of an artificially intoxicated bitch by a sound 

 dog showed " alcoholic degeneration " and soon died. 



