No. 563] EFFECT OF INTOXICATING MALE PARENT 647 



mosomes, either the paternal or maternal, is necessary 

 for development of the egg. 



During the summer of 1912 I treated the spermatozoa 

 of fish with various salts and organic substances with 

 negative results. When the treatment was sufficiently 

 strong to affect the spermatozoa it rendered them incapa- 

 ble of fertilizing the eggs. A method could no doubt be 

 devised for modifying fish spermatozoa with various 

 chemicals and of course radium does modify the fish 

 sperm as Opperman found. 



Only a few experiments have been performed in at- 

 tempting to modify the offspring of birds by injuring the 

 male. Todde found that the offspring from alcoholized 

 roosters were not quite normal and that the roosters did 

 not succeed as well as usual in fertilizing eggs. Lustig's 

 experiments showed that by inoculating fowls with abrin 

 the offspring were rendered less resistant to inoculations 

 of abrin than were control animals of the same age. This 

 result followed the inoculations of either parent, the 

 male as well as the female. 



A more extensive literature bears upon the actions of 

 poisons on the male germ cells of mammals, though most 

 of the cases are uncontrolled observations. The treatment 

 of the germ cells of mammals is a more complex proposi- 

 tion than the experiments on those lower forms in which 

 the fertilization is external and where, for this reason, 

 the eggs and spermatozoa may be treated directly. In 

 mammals the stimulus must be applied through the ani- 

 mal body and the case is thus complicated since it is often 

 impossible to differentiate between the direct action of 

 the substance applied and the secondary effects due to the 

 responses of the parental body to the treatment. With 

 certain treatments, however, the case is not so complex 

 as would appear at first sight, since the substances may 

 pass into the blood stream and the lymph and act directly 

 on the germ cells just as they do on other tissues and 



In experiments to modify the germ cells of mammals 



