ALCOHOL, DISEASE, AND HEREDITARY DEFECTS 289 
the authors obtained mainly negative results it is unscientific to 
berate them for this fact, or to bewail the circumstance that their 
findings may have given comfort to the friends of alcohol. 
We may pass briefly over the studies of Laitenen, MacNicholl, 
and Bezzola since they have subjected to a critical overhauling 
by Pearson and shown to be based on faulty methods of investiga- 
tion. Laitenen’s data do not inform us whether the father or 
mother or both parents were alcoholic, which is a very unfortu- 
nate omission when one is dealing with problems of heredity. 
Weights of the children of abstainers, moderate drinkers (those 
taking no more than a glass a beer a day) and drinkers were taken 
by the parents at monthly intervals from birth to eight months of 
age. The babies of the drinkers averaged somewhat less (4.4 per 
cent for boys, 3.6 per cent for girls) than those of abstainers, the 
offspring of “moderates” occupying an intermediate position. 
Although when eight months old the abstainers’ children were 
heavier than those of the moderates, and these again heavier than 
those of the drinkers, increase in weight, however, was quite as 
rapid in the children of the drinkers when comparison is made 
with the original weight. These results have very little signifi- 
cance for any problem of heredity since we know little of the 
social and nothing of the racial differences of the several classes. 
The fact that the age at marriage for the abstainers is consider- 
ably greater than that of drinkers might, since young mothers 
produce small babies, be a factor in accounting for the relatively 
slight differences in weight between the offspring of the drinking 
and abstaining parents. 
Bezzola contends that relatively more idiots and imbeciles 
are conceived in Switzerland during the period of vintage and at 
other times at which unusual amounts of alcohol are drunk, but 
as the excess at most is only three births out of some seven hun- 
dred it is entirely without any statistical significance. 
MacNicholl’s data, despite its imposing quantity, yields no 
evidence of the réle of heredity which any critical student of 
genetics would think of basing any conclusions upon. Maternal 
or paternal inebriety are not distinguished, and no attempt is 
