No. 645] ALCOHOL AND V^'HITE RATS 291 



individuals. All the experiments appear to indicate an 

 immediate reduction in the number of offspring. The 

 uniformity of this result tends certainly to increase its 

 value as a general result ; but even so, as long as the 

 controls are subject to criticism, the apparent consistency 

 may be due to the controls and not to the regularity of 

 the reactions to alcohol. For a single result can not at 

 the same time prove the reliability of the controls and 

 the results of alcohol treatment. It is hoped that the 

 controls employed in the following experiments will be 

 found to approach the ideal of satisfjdng all require- 



Methods 



In 1914 an investigation was undertaken upon the in- 

 fluence of alcohol on the untreated descendants of white 

 rats with the primary object of studying the behavior, 

 or learning capacity, in different generations. In the 

 summer of 1917 war conditions necessitated repeated re- 

 ductions of the stocks until, by the end of the next year, 

 the material was completely lost. This calamitous ter- 

 mination of the work must be borne in mind, for, in spite 

 of the final nature of this report, the data come from 

 an investigation that was not completed. 



Material and Breeding.— The rats employed belonged 

 to four strains; three of these strains originated respec- 

 tively from three pairs of rats in the Wistar Standard 

 Stock, the fourth strain had been bred in this laboratory 

 for three generations. All matings were between full 

 brothers and sisters. When 28 days old the litters used 

 to start these experiments were divided into two lots on 

 the basis of equal weight and equal numl>ers of oacli sex ; 

 one of these lots was used as controls, the other was 

 treated. All matings were l^tween the original treated 

 males and females or their descendants, or l>etween the 

 original control males and females or their descendants. 

 In each generation the control iiinl pnrallrl tliosc of 

 the descendants of the treated niiimal>, >(» that rarli ^l oup 

 of test animals in each generation had it^ own partifuhir 



