ALCOHOL, DISEASE, AND HEREDITARY DEFECTS 291 
way conditions may be controlled, check experiments carried on, 
and data obtained that are free from a multitude of possible 
interpretations. Heredity in human beings is essentially the same 
as heredity in animals, and should it be found quite generally 
that alcoholism in the lower animals is productive of heritable 
defects, it is very probable that the same conclusion could be 
applied also to man. 
The only other substance which evidence points to as probably 
causing injury to human germ plasm is lead. In 1860 Constan- 
tine Paul reported that women workers in lead have an unusually 
high number of abortions, stillbirths, and children who are 
unhealthy and die early. Much more indicative of a true hered- 
itary influence is the fact that, when the father alone worked in 
lead a high percentage of abortions or early deaths occurred in the 
offspring. Of 32 pregnancies in women who were not lead work- 
ers but whose husbands were exposed to lead there were twelve 
abortions or stillbirths, and of the 20 children born alive, 8 died in 
the first year, 4 in the second and 5 in the third. 
The bad effects of plumbism have been discussed by several 
writers (Ballard, Lewin, Rennert, Bourneville, Roques, Oliver) 
but in most cases the reports dealt with maternal plumbism, or 
with data in which the maternal and paternal effects are not 
distinguished. It has been shown that lead is absorbed by the 
foetus from the mother and that it may also pass to the offspring 
through the mother’s milk. In maternal plumbism, therefore, 
the offspring are doubtless directly injured by the lead itself. 
Even when women who have discontinued work in lead con- 
tinue to have an unusually large number of abortions the result 
may be due either to persistence of the poison in the mother’s 
blood, or to the general impairment of their health as a result of 
the poison. 
According to Oliver, “‘the effects of lead in this particular 
direction [z. e., on offspring] are worse when both parents are 
affected, next when it is the mother alone who has been brought 
under the influence of lead; but there is evidence to show that 
lead impregnation of the male is extremely prejudicial to the 
