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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. L 



irritated during the early stages of the treatment, but 

 develops a resistance so that later little effect can be no- 

 ticed. The cornea of the eye is greatly irritated, often 

 becoming milky white and opaque during the first few 

 months. In some cases this later clears and the animal 

 is again able to see, though some of the animals treated 

 for several years have remained entirely blind. The gen- 

 eral condition of the animals under the fume treatment 

 is very good. They all continue to grow if the treatment 

 is begun before reaching their full size, and become fat 

 and vigorous, taking plenty of food and behaving in a 

 typically normal manner. 



Some of the treated animals have died and others have 

 been killed at different times during the progress of the 

 experiment and their organs and tissues examined care- 

 fully and then studied microscopically. All have seemed 

 practically normal. Tissues from several animals treated 

 as long as three years have been examined and the heart, 

 stomach, lungs, kidneys, and other organs present no no- 

 ticeable conditions that might not be found in normal 

 individuals. Alcoholized animals are usually fat, but 

 there is no fatty accumulation in the parenchyma of any 

 of the organs. 



Several of the animals, both males and females, have 

 been partially castrated during the experiments and the 

 ovaries and testes have been found to be in a healthy con- 

 dition, though certain possible changes may be present 

 which are now being closely studied cytologically and 



The treated animals are, therefore, little changed or in- 

 jured so far as their behavior and structure goes. Nev- 

 ertheless, the effects of the treatment are most emphati- 

 cally shown by the type of offspring to which the alcohol- 

 ized individuals give rise, whether they be mated together 

 or with normal individuals. The further significance of 

 the nature of the effects is indicated by the quality of the 

 subsequent generations descended from such an ancestry. 



