ORIGIN OF MONSTEES 567 



The assumptioji of the action of parental metabolic toxaemia 

 on the (uterine or pre-uterine) ovum might also reasonably be 

 extended to the male germ cell, which in fertilizing a normal 

 ovum might cause it to develop into a monster. In this case 

 the chemically altered spermatozoon would probably act in a 

 manner very similar to the germ cell of another species. For, 

 as it will be remembered, Moenkhaus ('04) has demonstrated 

 that if eggs of Fundulus heteroclitus be fertilized with the sperm 

 of Menidia various deformities will result. This experiment has 

 since been repeated by Loeb ('15) and myself ^^ and most recently 

 by Reagan and Thorington ('15). Foreign sperm has evidently 

 a toxic effect on the egg and thus deranges its development from 

 the t^Tpical course. In analogj^, the same may be true for the 

 chemically altered spermatozoon of the same species. That thus 

 modified spermatozoa, if fertilizing normal ova, may cause them 

 to develop into degenerate individuals appears to be probable 

 from statistical data on cliildren of male alcohoUcs (Stockard '12). 

 Very recently Stockard ('14) has demonstrated that the progeny 

 of experimentally alcoholized guinea pigs, which had been mated 

 to a normal female, was degenerate and deformed, thus sug- 

 gesting that the chemical injury sustained by the chromatic 

 substance of the spermatozoa had a deleterious effect on the 

 normal ova of healthy females. Since male individuals are just 

 as subject to disturbances of metaboHsm (although possibly less 

 frequently) it is not improbable that the sperm of males suffer- 

 ing from metabolic toxaemia may bring about abnormal develop- 

 ment when fertilizing normal ova. The effects of this union of 

 normal chromatin with chemically altered chromatin may even 

 be unnoticeable in the first generation of offspring and appear 

 in the second and further consecutive generations as in the 

 above mentioned breeding experiments of Stockard with guinea 

 pigs. This author even reports that the results of mating 

 descendants from an alcoholized father and a healthy mother 

 deteriorate markedly with each consecutive generation. These 

 data are very important for our considerations. For, if toxic 



" Not published. 



