ALCOHOLISM 277 



(5) Just as upbringing in an environment of intemperance 

 may bring about results which simulate direct inheritance, so 

 it should, we think, be frankly and responsibly recognised that 

 there is an occupational factor in the persistence of excessive 

 alcoholic habits. From certain occupations — dreary, unwhole- 

 some, underpaid, and what not — rehef is sought in alcoholic 

 stimulants. As long as these conditions persist they are 

 likely to prompt successive generations to similar expedients, 

 and this must be borne in mind when we try to estimate how 

 much of so-called alcoholic degeneration is strictly speaking 

 due to inheritance. 



(6) It is necessary to recognise that what may be inherited 

 is not the result of alcoholism, but rather the disposition which 

 led the parent to become alcoholic — e.g. lack of control power. 

 This is clearly illustrated in cases where the parent did not 

 acquire the alcoholic habit until after he had ceased having 

 children. Thus a great authority observes, " It was not 

 the craving for alcohol that was inherited, but a general psycho- 

 pathic constitution in which the alcoholic stimulus is an undue 

 stimulus, and the mental control deficient " (T. S. Clouston). 



(7) It is not to be expected that the particular modifications 

 which the parent acquired through abuse of alcohol will be 

 transmitted as such to his offspring. There is no secure evidence 

 of this. The father may acquire cirrhosis of the liver, the 

 child may be epileptic. There seems to be no authentic instance 

 of anything like transmission of cirrhosis of the liver from a 

 drunken father to his son. That a drunken son may also acquire 

 cirrhosis proves nothing. 



(8) The predisposition which facilitated the hyper-alcoholic 

 habit in the parent is transmitted. There may be intra- uterine 

 intoxication of the unborn child if the mother is a drunkard. 

 The tradition in favour of the abuse of alcohol may persist. 

 The conditions of nurture may also tend to induce the alcoholic 

 habit in the offspring ; but there is more. Much evidence points 



