ANTE-NATAL HYGIENE : DISCUSSION 355 



with the matter. The other point he wished to bring- 

 forward was that of alcohol. He did not think that had 

 been adequately recognized in the programme of the Con- 

 gress, and he considered it was worth while to point out 

 that they were getting very important actual evidence, and 

 not supposition, that alcohol was one of the poisons that 

 affected the child before birth. Dr. Ballantyne just men- 

 tioned it, but Dr. Kerr did not refer to it. There were 

 many poisons which might be inserted into the mother and 

 through her into the child, as had been proved beyond 

 doubt, and alcohol was a conspicuous illustration. He had 

 two papers with him about which little was known in this 

 country. One was by Dr. Edward Bertholet, who devoted 

 nearly five years to a microscopic study of the effect of 

 alcoholism upon the reproductive organs, and he had page 

 after page and illustration after illustration showing how 

 alcohol caused unmistakable degeneration of the ovaries in 

 exactly the same way as it caused degeneration of the liver 

 and kidney cells. This was evidence based on five years' 

 scrupulous first-hand work, and reported at intervals in 

 leading Continental journals, showing that the reproductive 

 organs were more susceptible to the influence of alcohol 

 than any other organs in the body, for the reason they 

 might suppose that they contained what were really the 

 youngest cells the most active, and therefore the most 

 susceptible. He had also a paper by Professor R. Stockard, 

 of New York, who devoted two or three years' observation 

 to the influence of alcohol upon the health of offspring in 

 the case of guinea-pigs. In that paper were to be found 

 the photographs of guinea-pigs whose fathers or mothers, 

 or both, had been treated with alcohol. Directly any sign 

 of approaching intoxication was observed the alcohol was 

 abolished. They did nothing but inhale it for a short period 

 every day regularly, and the result on the offspring was 

 unquestionable. He believed that in the light of evidence 

 like that students of infant mortality had to pay more atten- 

 tion than they had yet paid to the influence of alcohol, parti v 

 through the father and very notably through the mother. 

 because they had very definite evidence that a very short 

 time after the administration of a dose of alcohol they found 

 :'t in the blood of the foetus also. 



Dr. HELEN M.u MURCHY (Toronto) said that before they 

 passed from the point perhaps they ought to remind them- 

 selves of the German results, where two and in some cases 

 three generations of alcoholics were regarded from the 

 point of view of whether or not the female descendants were 

 able to nurse their offspring. The results were very 



