284 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
were alcoholic, but they became alcoholic because they were 
previously 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 
posssible; 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 
