ALCOHOL— ITS USE AND ABUSE 387 



quantities as to materially reduce their mental ability, but on the •with- 

 drawal of alcohol, normal intelligence was awakened. 



Statistics have been collected which show that in the mining coun- 

 ties of England there is much alcoholism and little insanity, whereas 

 in the country districts the reverse is true. The explanation given by 

 Sullivan is that the more feeble minded among the English stay in 

 agriculture and procreate their species, whereas the more intellectually 

 active move to the town environment. So it may be, that perhaps no 

 more than 10 per cent, of the insane are really produced by the direct 

 action of alcohol, the rest having inherited conditions of weak intel- 

 lectuality. 



A further question is the action of alcohol on heredity, a matter 

 which has been taken up by some of the most prominent English au- 

 thorities. The question is, does parental alcoholism influence the phys- 

 ical and mental ability of the offspring. This question is discussed by 

 Hyslop in a recent number of the Lancet. It is still doubtful whether 

 the heritage from alcoholic parents is due to the alcoholism or whether 

 it is due to the inherent parental degeneracy with the accompanying 

 tendency towards alcoholism, and here again one must consider the as- 

 sociation of the child with its alcoholic parent usually in an unwhole- 

 some poverty-stricken environment. Hodge has demonstrated that al- 

 coholized dogs give birth to offspring of low vigor and low viability. 



It is stated that the only true solution of this question in human 

 beings is to be obtained through a number of instances in which chil- 

 dren have been born to parents before the alcoholism, during alcoholism 

 and after recovering from alcoholism. Such experimental conditions, 

 of course, are not to be thought of as premeditated, and the history of 

 such cases as actually occur in the tragedy of life are only with diffi- 

 culty obtainable with accuracy. It is but recently that hereditary 

 studies have been made on the subject of the color of the eyes, of the 

 hair, and in other problems the work of necessity becomes more and more 

 complicated. However, such statistics as have been collected seem to 

 indicate that with each successive generation addicted to alcoholism 

 there is a shorter period of existence before alcoholism sets in in the off- 

 spring. Thus Hyslop says that parental alcoholism accentuates the 

 downward trend of an inherited neurosis and physical degeneracy. 



There can be no doubt that this question of the use and abuse of 

 alcohol is one of the most serious with which the modern world to-day 

 has to deal. 



