ALCOHOL, DISEASE, AND HEREDITARY DEFECTS 277 



with modern views on the nature of hereditary transmission can 

 read very much of the writings that have accumulated on this 

 question without a feeHng of grave doubt or suspicion in regard 

 to the conclusiveness of most of the evidence that is brought 

 forward. The subject is seldom discussed without bias, and most 

 of our data has been collected by writers who were endeavoring to 

 make the case against alcohol as bad as it could be made. But 

 should there be no transmission of acquired characters in the 

 strict sense of the term, it does not follow that parental alcohol- 

 ism produces no effect upon the next generation. It may affect 

 the nutrition of the germ cells and so tend to stunt the offspring. 

 It may poison the germ cells by being carried into direct contact 

 with them through the blood; or it may poison them indirectly by 

 means of substances arising from the disordered functions of the 

 body. In still another way the next generation may be affected, 

 and that is by the influence of alcohol on the foetus during the 

 period of pregnancy. We cannot call such an influence hereditary 

 transmission, although it has often been confused with hereditary 

 transmission. Alcohol in the blood of the mother might pass 

 through the placenta into the foetal circulation where in fact it 

 has been detected. The effect of alcohol on the offspring in such 

 a case would be a direct and not an inherited one. It is as if one 

 of a pair of Siamese twins should drink and the other one should 

 also get drunk, a result which might very well happen. In any 

 consideration of the hereditary effects of alcohol we shall have, 

 therefore, to treat the effects of maternal indulgence during preg- 

 nancy as a special case. It is quite possible for alcohol to in- 

 jure the unborn child without affecting the germ plasm or heredi- 

 tary substance, or producing an effect that is, strictly speaking, 

 hereditary. 



There is another distinction which must be made in discussing 

 this subject, and that is the distinction between inheriting a 

 propensity toward alcoholism, and the transmission of the effects 

 of parental indulgence in alcohol. If the son of a drunken father 

 drinks to excess it does not follow that the son has inherited 

 the effects of his father's habit of drink. Father and son may 



