MEMOIR ON PARENTAL ALCOHOLISM 41 



patient's parents has been given as the hereditary moment 

 in cases of epilepsy and melancholic mania, we are really 

 concerned^ with parents affected in the same manner, and 

 only alcoholic in a secondary degree. In the absence of 

 these special psychical conditions — in the case of chronic 

 alcoholists, whose fundamental disorder is pure 'chronic 

 mania' — Stocker finds that, in general, long years of 

 marked drinking, including spirit drinking, do not in the 

 least affect their mental capacity, power of work and 

 energy ; there is no question of imbecility. 



* Im Gegentheil, bei dieser Art von chronischen Saufern 

 ist man oft erstaunt liber die erhebliche korperliche und 

 geistige Riistigkeit in hohem Alter ' (S. 295). 



Much the same view has been expressed by Chroters, 

 who holds that the abuse of alcohol is a sign of degeneracy. 

 Not opportunity to drink, not moral influences are the 

 causative motives in alcoholism ; the ground must have 

 been prepared by the presence of degenerative factors. 



It will, I think, be clear to my readers that it is not the 

 statisticians of the Eugenics Laboratory alone whom Sir 

 Victor Horsley — in the first place a surgeon — has to meet. 

 There is a growing and really scientific medical school of 

 alienists, whom he may much more usefully spend his time 

 in opposing ; and the only way in which he will be able 

 to do this is to place observation against observation, and 

 show in statistically significant numbers that sound stocks 

 which take to drinking de novo will de novo produce 

 defective children. 



For the Eugenist the question is a vital one ; he belongs 

 to a body growing in numbers and weight in the state. 

 Is he, admitting as he must do that alcoholism is a great 

 national problem, to talk vaguely of alcohol as a racial 

 poison and throw his influence into the existing temperance 



