372 BODY CONTROL AND HABIT FORMATION 



The proportion of crime due to alcohol is shown in black. 



timately to life in some public institution. In Massachusetts, of 

 3230 inmates of such institutions, 66 per cent were alcoholics. 



The Relation of Alcohol to Heredity. Perhaps the gravest 

 side of the alcohol question lies here. If each one of us had only 

 himself to think of, the question of alcohol might not be so serious. 

 But drinkers may hand down to their unfortunate children ten- 

 dencies toward drink as well as nervous diseases of various sorts ; 

 an alcoholic parent may beget children who are epileptic, neu- 

 rotic, or even insane. 



In the State of New York there are at the present time some 

 30,000 insane persons in public and private hospitals. It is be- 

 lieved that about one fifth of them, or 6000 patients, owe their 

 insanity to alcohol used either by themselves or by their parents. 

 In the asylums of the United States there are 150,000 insane people. 

 Taking the same proportions as before, there are 30,000 persons 

 in this country whom alcohol has made or has helped to make 

 insane. This is the most terrible side of the alcohol problem. 



REFERENCE READING 

 ELEMENTARY 



Hunter, Laboratory Problems in Civic Biology. American Book Company. 



Overton, General Hygiene. American Book Company. 



The Guiick Hygiene Series, Emergencies, Good Health, The Body at Work, Control 



of Body and Mind. Ginn and Company. 

 Ritchie, Human Physiology. World Book Company. 

 Hough and Sedgwick, The Human Mechanism. Ginn and Company. 



