284 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



were alcoholic, but tliey became alcoholic because they were 

 prexaously abnormal. It may be said that they were born ab- 

 normal because their parents were addicted to alcohol. But if 

 we were to enquire into the history of the parents the same 

 question would arise: Were they alcoholic because they were 

 degenerate or degenerate because their parents were alcoholic? 

 And so we might go back generation after generation and we 

 would probably find much the same conditions that prevail in the 

 stock at the present time. The question of paramount impor- 

 tance is : What started the neuropathic strain of alcoholics in the 

 first place? Presumably it started somewhere from a relatively 

 normal stock. Was the start due to alcohol? This is of course 

 po$ssible; we may say that it is not improbable. But proven it is 

 not. And it cannot be proven by the kind of statistics usually 

 appealed to in support of the commonly received opinion. Most 

 of these statistics are drawn from institutions for the care of 

 epileptics, insane asylums, homes for the feeble-minded, and 

 institutions for the care of chronic inebriates or dipsomaniacs. 

 From the nature of the case we are dealing with a portion of the 

 population with a defective inheritance which may manifest 

 itself in many ways. Medical authorities are of the opinion, 

 generally speaking, that the tendency to drink is an inherited 

 one. And this strong tendency to drink is very frequently 

 accompanied by, and is perhaps a result of a neuropathic taint. 

 As Dugdale says in his book on the notorious Jukes family, 

 "fuller investigation tends to show that certain diseases and 

 mental disorders precede the appetite for stimulants and that the 

 true cause for their use is the antecedent hereditary or induced 

 physical exhaustion." 



If we could start with two lots of people of equally good inheri- 

 tance and allow to one the use of alcoholic stimulants and with- 

 draw them from the other, and then after a few generations 

 compare the average progeny of the two lots, we might, after 

 making allowance for the differences of direct environmental 

 influence affecting the children, arrive at some probable conclu- 

 sions as to how alcohol influences heredity. We do not find these 



