Acquired Modifications Heritable? 117 



its educability. It was found that the off- 

 spring of rats accustomed to habits of inebriety 

 learned more readily thaii those of non- 

 alcoholized rats. Hodge found the reverse to 

 be true for dogs. 



So far as the statistics of human inebriety 

 go, it appears that the children of moderate and 

 even of excessive drinkers are not inferior to 

 the general run of children from the same social 

 stratum. It is true, however, that there is a 

 high percentage of defective offspring from 

 parents who are addicted to alcoholic debauches. 

 These apparently contradictory findings are 

 harmonized in this way. Alcoholism is a 

 symptom rather than a cause. It denotes 

 nervous degeneracy. The children from such 

 defective germ plasm are very prone to mani- 

 fest nervous defects, such as alcoholic mania, 

 insanity, epileptic seizures, imbecility, and so 

 on. This topic wiU be further discussed in 

 the next chapter. It is touched upon here to 

 make clear this point, that while acquired 

 modifications are not transmissible hereditarily, 

 those influences which affect the body may 



