50 THE BREEDING OF ANIMALS 



from conceptions during drunkenness, Sullivan reports 

 six as having died of convulsions and the seventh was still- 

 born. Chronic alcoholism has been found to change the 

 structure of the testicular glands. The children of lead 

 workers are known to be sometimes defective. 



Stockard 1 has made some very interesting experiments 

 which clearly show that the sperm may be so affected 

 that the resulting offspring will be defective. As a result 

 of mating normal female guinea pigs with males which 

 were in a state of intoxication from inhaling alcohol fumes, 

 many of the offspring were defective. " Out of 69 full 

 term young, of which 54 were born alive, only -33 have 

 survived and many of these are small and excitable 

 animals, and although not treated themselves have since 

 given rise to defective offspring in several cases where 

 they have been mated with another." 



If these results are confirmed, we must conclude that 

 it is possible to modify the offspring by special treatment 

 of the paternal parent. Some evidence is submitted 

 by this investigation to show that the bad effects are not 

 limited to the immediate offspring but are transmitted 

 to subsequent generations. 



49. Effect of lead poisoning on the male germ-cells 

 as indicated by the offspring. That the children of 

 fathers who work in lead-manufacturing industries are 

 often defective has been observed for a long time. Cole 2 

 and Bachhuber have reported results of feeding lead 

 acetate to rabbits and fowls. The treatments were 

 given to male parents alone and these were mated with 

 normal females. Injury to the offspring from such treat- 



1 Loc. cit. 



2 Cole and Bachhuber, "Proceedings of the Society for 

 Experimental Biology and Medicine," 1914, XII, pp. 24-29. 



