MEMOIR ON PARENTAL ALCOHOLISM 39 



of the Influence 0/ Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and 

 Ability of the Offsprings two things have occurred to 

 strengthen our position in this matter. The first is that 

 we have been able to obtain a copy of the original of 

 Demme's investigations cited by Horsley, Hodge, Basil 

 Price, and Kirby, without giving any reference to the original. 

 This shows at once that Demme selected his children of 

 drunkards, not by selecting drinking families, but by 

 selecting children who came to the Jennersches Kinder- 

 spital on account of mental defect^ wanting or imperfect 

 development of speech, or imbecility or idiocy, and that when 

 he found families in which such child-defect occurred he 

 then inquired as to the alcoholism of their ancestry. Further, 

 in a very large number of such cases, on his own showing, 

 the child itself was, owing to the too early consumption 

 of much alcohol, reduced to a condition approaching or 

 actually epileptic. Demme's book, Ueber den Einfluss des 

 Alkohols auf den Organisvms des Kindes (Enke, Stuttgart, 

 1891), is written in a perfectly moderate and reasonable 

 spirit. He draws the conclusion that alcoholic drinks 

 should not form part of the daily nourishment of young 

 children ; he looks upon alcohol in the case of children as 

 a useful drug to be administered under medical advice, 

 and on quite a different footing to its use by adults.^ 

 I may take occasion to return to Demme's statistics in 

 another place, but it is quite clear that those who have 

 taken them out of their context, without stating the nature 

 of Demme's selection, nor the lesson he himself has drawn 



^ 'So wohlthuend, anregend, belebend derAlkoholgenuss namentlich als Wein 

 Oder Bier fiir ditn fertigen Organismus, fiir den Erwachsenen, bei anstrengender 

 geistiger und korperlicher Arbeit, erscheint, als so nnzu'eckmdssig und nachtheilig 

 muss er im Sinne eines gewohnlichen Genussmittels fiir den imferligen kind- 

 lichen Orgatiisrmis bezeichnet werden.' S. 67. Tlie italics are Demme's. 



