Alcohol and Racial Degeneration
(From the Journal of the American Medical Association) Observations Substantiated by Properly Controlled Experiments on Lower Animals
For this purpose Professor Stockard, of the Cornell University Medical College, New York, has undertaken a study of racial degeneration in lower animals treated with alcohol. In Stockard’s experiments, alcoholic treatment was given to guinea-pigs by an inhalation method. Alcoholic males were then mated with normal females. In the maternal test, alcoholic females were paired with untreated males. The outcome of these investigations has been convincing in their demonstration that alcohol may affect the offspring through either parent. Though the animals were never completely intoxicated, they were in a state of chronic alcoholism. Nine matings of normal animals, in the same group, gave nine living litters of seventeen vigorous individuals. Out of forty-two matings of alcoholized animals only seven young survived, and five of these were runts. In the paternal tests, there were abortions, still-born litters, and early deaths; the maternal test resulted much the same. When both parents were alcoholic, in most cases the matings resulted in no offspring, very early abortions, or still-born litters. The single offspring born living, from fourteen matings of alcoholic parents, died in convulsions at an early age. In general, the deaths of these unhealthy young followed symptoms of nervous disorders.