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THE AMEBIC AN NATURALIST [Vol. L 



and tissues of the animal's body. The direct action of 

 alcohol fnmes tends to injure the respiratory mucosa and 

 to render the cornea of the eye dull or opaque. These 

 changes, however, do not inconvenience the animals in 

 any perceptible way, and they remain strong and hardy 

 and live as long and actively as the untreated guinea pigs. 

 In spite of their healthy appearance the injurious influ- 

 ence of the alcohol inhalation is very decidedly shown by 

 the quality of offspring to which the treated animals give 

 rise. And the descendants of these offspring are even 

 worse than the F x generation when compared with the 

 different generations of control animals produced under 

 identical cage and food conditions. 



The males seem to be more injured by the treatment 

 than the females, taking as an index of injury the quality 

 of their offspring and descendants. Stating it differ- 

 ently, the spermatocytes or spermatozoa are more sensi- 

 tive to the changed chemical condition of the tissues than 

 are the female germ cells. 



There is a larger proportion of degenerate, paralytic 

 and grossly deformed individuals descended from the 

 alcoholized males than from the alcoholized females. 



The records of 682 offspring produced by 571 matings 

 of animals of various types have been tabulated to show 

 the kinds of litters of young produced and their ability to 

 survive. One hundred and sixty-four matings of alcohol- 

 ized animals, in which either the father, mother, or both 

 were alcoholic, gave 64, or almost 40 per cent., negative 

 results or early abortions, while only 25 per cent, of the 

 control matings failed to give full-term litters. Of the 

 100 full-term litters from alcoholic parents 18 per cent, 

 contained stillborn young, and only 50 per cent, of all the 

 matings resulted in living litters. Forty-six per cent, of 

 the individuals in the litters of living young died very 

 soon after birth. In contrast to this record 73 per cent, 

 of the 90 control matings gave living litters and 84 per 

 cent, of the young in these litters survived as normal, 

 healthy animals. 



