322 THE EVOLUTION AGAINST NARCOTICS 



limited number of men, each man paying a nominal deposit for his 

 knot ; the porter then starts work, receiving at the warehouse door 

 for each box he takes in a brass ticket marked with the amount of 

 his fee, id., 2d. or 3d., according to the size of the box. These 

 tickets he can get changed for money later in the day by the clerk, 

 or he can bring them at any time to a public-house which enjoys 

 the special privilege of cashing them, the porter taking a certain pro- 

 portion of their value in drink. The second alternative is, of course, 

 nearly always adopted, and, as a consequence, a large number of these 

 men do their work almost exclusively on beer. As soon as its effect 

 is sufficiently visible to suggest risk of accident, the man has to give 

 up his knot for the day, and is replaced by a fresh hand. These 

 conditions produce the maximum development of industrial 

 alcoholism." 1 



544. The belief that parental drinking commonly tends to alter 

 the germ-plasm, and so results in filial degeneration, was universal 

 until recently, and is still very prevalent amongst medical men. 

 As in the case of diseases it is founded mainly on * common sense,' 

 and on statistics which indicate that the progenitors of physical 

 and mental ' degenerates ' have often been intemperate. Every 

 reason which is valid against microbic disease as a cause of 

 degeneracy is valid against alcohol. It is not to be denied, of 

 course, that parental drinking may sometimes (when the germ- 

 plasm has varied unfavourably in such a way that it has lost its power 

 of resistance) be a cause of filial degeneracy, but in view of the 

 fact that races which are now temperate are not degenerate, but 

 were originally drunken, it is impossible that it can be a common 

 cause. It must be remembered that in the case of many races 

 alcohol like malaria affects practically every individual. We have 

 all known people, derived from drunken stocks, who were physically 

 and mentally fit and capable that is, people whose germ-plasm 

 was resistant to the direct action of alcohol. It follows that, even 

 if alcohol does tend commonly to alter the germ-plasm, especially 

 on its first introduction to a race, the constant elimination of 

 susceptible strains and survival of resistant types would infallibly 

 tend to establish a high degree of insusceptibility. 



545. To sum up the questions the reader must decide when 

 studying alcoholism from the point of view of heredity and evolu- 

 tion are'(i) What, fundamentally, are the motives which induce 

 men to become intemperate ? Do they drink to excess because 

 they enjoy the sensations thus awakened, or from some other motive, 



1 op. tit., pp. 83-4. 



