ALCOHOL, DISEASE, AND HEREDITARY DEFECTS 285 
conditions realized to any considerable degree. However, there 
has been found little correlation between the amount of drunken- 
ness in any city or country and the number of defective people. 
Dr. Bevan Lewis and Dr. Sullivan have shown that in England 
the inland or agricultural communities had the least amount of 
drunkenness and a high ratio of pauperism and insanity, while 
mining and manufacturing communities which were the most 
intemperate had a very small ratio of pauperism and insanity. 
This fact, while contrary to what one might expect in the light of 
the fact previously cited, may not be indicative of anything in 
regard to the hereditary effects of alcohol. The better endowed 
may have migrated into the cities, leaving the poorer stock to 
perpetuate the race in the country, and there may have been 
various other social forces that would work in the same direction. 
The situation illustrates how dangerous it is to take statistics at 
their face value, and to base conclusions on them without a 
knowledge of the various possible factors which may account for 
the results. 
One of the most systematic investigations of the subject that 
has appeared in recent years is the Study of the Influence of 
Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring 
written by Elderton and Pearson, and published by the Eugenics 
Laboratory of London. The material investigated consisted of a 
school in Edinburgh and some special schoolsin Manchester. 
The parents of the school children were carefully studied and their 
habits as regards alcohol accurately ascertained. In the data 
from the Manchester schools the parents were classed as either 
temperate or intemperate, but a closer grading was made of the 
Edinburgh parents who were grouped into teetotalers, sober, 
suspected to drink, drinks, has bouts of drinking. The children 
were graded as to height, weight, health, eye-sight and mental 
ability. Then a comparison was made between these character- 
istics and the habits of the parents. It was found (1) that in both 
Edinburgh and Manchester there was a higher death rate among 
the children of the alcoholic parents, and that the alcoholic 
parents had more children, so that the net family was about the 
