48o 



NATURE 



[February 9, 191 1 



Questions of great interest are also raised in the 

 dicussion of the relation between alcoholism and reli- 

 gion. Of the female inebriates in Langho Asylum 

 quite one-half are Roman Catholics, while of the 

 populations from which they are draw'n not more than 

 one-third are of this denomination in Liverpool or 

 one-sixth in Manchester. These facts indicate that 

 the Roman Catholics in Manchester and Liverpool are 

 more given to alcoholic excess than the Protestants, 

 and it is suggested that a reason for this may be 

 found in a racial difference. The Roman Catholics 

 are largely Irish immigrants, and the Irish immi- 

 grants in the industrial towns of England are not the 

 most desirable specimens of their race. In this con- 

 nection it is noted that " the Irish district of Liverpool 

 ... is one of the few instances in which during the 

 last twenty years there has not been a fall in the birth- 

 rate." Thus if alcoholism is due to an hereditary 

 deficiency the differential birth-rate in Liverpool (and 

 Liverpool is probably not exceptional in this respect), 

 must lead to its propagation to a disproportionate 

 extent. •! 



That prostitution is in intimate association with 

 alcoholism and mental defect is shown also in the 

 tables of this paper. More than one-third of the 

 whole number of women dealt with were prostitutes, 

 but among these no greater proportion of mental de- 

 fectives was found than among the remaining 

 women. The Roman Catholic inmates of the asylum 

 included a relatively smaller proportion of prostitutes 

 than the Protestants, but this is due to the fact 

 that the total proportion of alcoholists among the 

 Roman Catholic community is greater, and not that 

 the proportion of inebriate prostitutes is less. 



Since the publication of the memoirs here described 

 a further attack by Dr. Mary Sturge and Sir Victor 

 Horsley, in the " First Study of the Influence of 

 Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of 

 the Offspring," has appeared in The British Medical 

 Journal of January 14, and this has in turn given 

 rise to letters in The Times from both sides. Six main 

 errors are attributed by these critics to Prof. Pearson 

 and Miss Elderton. Firstly, they are accused of having 

 "committed the fundamental error of providing no 

 adequate control of their investigations into the con- 

 dition of the offspring of drinking parents." Secondly, 

 of the unscientific use of terms, particularly of the 

 term sober. These two criticisms cannot be con- 

 sidered independently. The memoir only claims to be 

 a comparison between the offspring of sober and of 

 alcoholic parents, therefore, if the term sober is used 

 in a definite sense differing from alcoholic, the control 

 provided is adequate for its purpose. A reference to 

 it will show that the word has been carefully defined, 

 and that the definition would be accepted by most 

 people. The second alleged instance of the unscien- 

 tific use of terms is that of the word "offspring" in 

 the title. As the critics rightly remark, offspring 

 might include persons of all ages, whereas only chil- 

 dren of school age are dealt with. This would hardly, 

 however, appear to be a justifiable ground for making 

 such a charge, since a "first study" of a subject does 

 not claim to deal exhaustively with the whole of it. 



The third accusation is "selection by the authors of 

 a non-representative population." It is stated that a 

 slum population is dealt with in which 62*5 per cent, 

 of the families were tainted with drink or in receipt 

 of charitable aid, and that by selecting this population 

 the authors cut themselves off from the possibility of 

 making a comparison between the children of alco- 

 holic and non-alcoholic parents respectively. It is a 

 little difficult to see how the percentage to be placed 

 in either group affects the possibility of making a 

 valid comparison, nor is it explained how the receipt 



NO. 2154, VOL'. 85] 



of charitable aid affects the question. With regard 

 to the implied accusation that the data used were 

 selected in order to give results of a particular kind, 

 it may perhaps be remarked that as the chief difficulty 

 in the systematic study of biological questions affect- 

 ing mankind is to obtain trustworthy data on which to 

 work, the possibility of selecting data on any other 

 grounds than that of their trustworthiness does not 

 exist, and it may be conjectured that Prof. Pearson 

 and his colleague used all the evidence before them at 

 the time of writing the paper. 



The fourth charge is "absence of any proof of 

 alcoholism beginning before the birth of the child." 

 In so far as there is reason in this charge it is due 

 to the deficiency of the data. The authors have had to 

 make an assumption concerning the state of the 

 parents before the birth of the children, namely, that 

 people who use alcohol excessively after the birth of 

 their children are very much more likely to have 

 been similarly addicted before and at the time of the 

 birth than those who do not. If this assumption is 

 correct, and few people would dispute it, it follows 

 that a classification according to the later habits 

 would be reasonably correct also with regard to the 

 earlier. A few parents would, no doubt, be placed in 

 the wrong groups, and although this would tend to 

 lessen any contrast between the offspring of the two 

 divisiorts, it could not eliminate it, nor, indeed, reduce 

 it seriously. 



The fifth alleged error is "contradictory statements 

 by Miss Elderton and Prof. Pearson concerning the' 

 children of alcoholic parents — for example, their 

 physique, health, and higher death-rate." The contra- 

 dictory statements appear to be (i) that the death-rate 

 among the children of alcoholic parents is higher, (2) 

 that the health of the surviving children of this class; 

 of parents seems on the whole to be slightly better^ 

 than of those of the sober class. It is difficult 

 to see in what respect the two statements are contra| 

 dictory, though it may be contrary to expectatioii 

 that the children among whom a larger proportion 

 deaths occur should be slightly healthier than tH 

 others. Prof. Pearson and Miss Elderton attribut 

 this partly to accident, overlaying, burns, and othe 

 causes arising from carelessness, partly to want 

 home care, to food defects, and to other factors pos 

 sibly toxic. 



The sixth charge is "erroneous conclusion that th^ 

 efficiency, as measured by wage-earning capacity, 

 an alcoholic male parent is at least equal to that of 

 less alcoholic male parent," which the critics descrit 

 as the chief generalisation raised by Miss Eldertoij 

 and Prof. Pearson. With regard to this, we wiJ 

 quote the letter to The Times of January 16 by th< 

 latter: "W'ill it be believed that in a memoir 

 forty-six pages scarcely more than half a page 

 given up to the wage problem, and we distinct! 

 state the purpose of that inquiry— namely, as a rouglj 

 test, that the alcohol users were not initially, phj 

 sically, or mentally, inferior to the sober." No cor 

 elusion such as that attributed to them was arrive 

 at by them. Incidentally, the charge is made 

 " imagining and publishing statistical data wher 

 none exist in reality " ; as an example of this we ar 

 told that Prof. Pearson has included in his table 

 seventeen porters, whereas only thirteen exist ijj 

 reality. " He therefore has invented for this trac 

 four imaginary individuals, though asserting throug'I^ 

 out that he is quoting the Edinburgh figures." Th^ 

 is what Prof. Pearson is accused of : what he ha4 

 actually done is to group as porters all those men in 

 the class defined by the Registrar-General as engaged 

 " in storage, porterage, and messages." 



E. H. J. S. 



