120 CHARLES R. STOCKARD AND GEORGE N. PAPANICOLAOU 



12. The birth weights and rate of growth in the normal and the alcoholic 



series 199 



13. The records of normal males and females paired successively with nor- 



mal and alcoholic mates; the crucial demonstration of the effects of 

 alcoholism on the offspring 205 



14. The contrasted qualities in the control and the alcoholic series 208 



15. General considerations ^ . . . . 212 



Literature cited 225 



1. INTRODUCTION 



• 



The present contribution presents the results obtained during 

 the sixth and seventh years of an experiment on the modification 

 of mammaUan germ cells by the treatment of parental generations 

 with alcohol. A number of new facts are added to our previous 

 findings, and the data now permit a more thorough analysis. 

 Treating the results obtained during these two years separately 

 may be looked upon as taking a cross-section of the entire experi- 

 ment. And when this isolated portion of the investigation is 

 compared with the previous studies, it supplies a further most 

 important control for the experunent as a whole. 



The earlier reports of this investigation (Stockard, '12, '13, 

 and '14; Stockard and Papanicolaou, '16) were made after the 

 first two years, three years, and five years of its progress. These 

 reports showed, in what seems to us a definite way, that the germ 

 cells in either the male or female maimiial may be changed or 

 affected by a chemical treatment administered to the body of the 

 individual. The progeny derived from such chemically treated 

 animals showed more or less marked deviations from the normal 

 in many definitely measurable qualities, such as their mortality 

 records, structural appearance, nervous reactions, and ability 

 to reproduce. The treatment also affected in the male, the crucial 

 germ-cell test for mammals, their ability to beget offspring when 

 mated with normal females. 



In general it may be stated that the offspring produced w^hen 

 treated males were paired with normal females were inferior in 

 several respects as compared with other offspring from the same 

 normal mothers bred to control males of exactly the same original 

 stock. Further, when the male offspring from treated fathers 



