THE 



AMERICAN NATURALIST 



Vol. LVI. July-August, 1922 No. 645 



EXPERIMENTS WITH ALCOHOL AND WHITE 

 EATS 



EDWIN CARLETON MacDOWELL 

 StatiOxX for Experimental Evolutiox, Cold Spring K\rbor, 

 Long Island, N. Y. 



Since tlie familiar paper by Elderton and Pearson 

 ('10) upon the physique and ability of children from al- 

 coholic parents, much discussion has taken place on the 

 relation of parental alcoholism to the condition of the 

 offspring. A small proportion of this has been based 

 upon experimental work with animals, as that of Stock- 

 ard ('12 and '13), Stockard and Papanicolaou ('16 and 

 '18), Nice ('12 and 13), Pearl ('17), and Arlitt ('19). 

 From such studies there should be no hope of obtaining 

 an immediate analysis of the human problem. In so far 

 as alcoholism in man is sociological, involving factors 

 of family life, environment and education, no study of 

 laboratory animals can have significance. The way such 

 studies may have a bearing upon the human problem is 

 through the revelation of general biological reactions 

 that may in all the animals available for study, be found 

 so invariable that it becomes safe to conclude that they 

 appear in man as well. How far the specific findings 

 herein reported for white rats may apply to different 

 animals is a matter for experiment and not conjecture. 

 But even were such a biological analysis secured, the 

 other phases of the human problem would not be solved. 



From the data at hand are there any indications of 

 general biological reactions that may have significance 

 for all animals? Stockard and Papanicolaou, with gui- 

 nea pigs, found that alcoholization of parents gave un- 

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