284 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



This potential inebriety varies within wide limits, and what 

 is inherited in the case of those who have it most strongly is 

 not a simple supernormal capacity for delighting in alcohol or 

 other narcotic drugs, but something very much more complex, 

 which may be briefly described as a constitution in which the 

 balance between this capacity and the power of self-control in 

 the face of temptation is disturbed, either by excess of the one 

 or the defect of the other, or possibly both, and in which a 

 morbid crave is easily set up. 



And although I do not believe that the life led by an inebriate 

 parent can increase the one (VI.), I go far beyond the grudging 

 admissions of the Report in thinking it quite probable it may 

 diminish the other, and cause a morbid crave to be easily set up. 



From this point of view the investigations of the effects of 

 chronic alcoholism and other more or less parallel poisonings in 

 conducing to degeneracy in offspring, to which the Committee 

 were continually invited by a valued member, would have come 

 well within the scope of the enquiry, and I greatly regret that 

 the Committee did not see its way to collect information upon, 

 and seriously investigate, the question of degeneracy from 

 parental alcoholism, which is entirely ignored in Section XIV. 



Maternal alcoholism (XV.) of course affects the developing 

 child directly through the circulation, apart from true inheritance. 

 It is therefore properly treated apart in the Report, and I hope 

 care will be taken to keep it apart in subsequent investigations, 

 but I think its effects might have been much more unreservedly 

 admitted. 



The Report may be taken for what it is worth as an 

 expression of the opinions of a small body of men who have 

 given their attention to the subject, but I am painfully conscious 

 that, although it may correct some popular misapprehensions, it 

 does not advance in any degree the little exact knowledge of 

 the subject which we possess. T. Morton, M.D. 



