Modern medical opinions on alcohol : being a series of lectures delivered by well-known medical men.
- Date:
- [1911?]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Modern medical opinions on alcohol : being a series of lectures delivered by well-known medical men. Source: Wellcome Collection.
35/160 page 25
![ALCOHOL AND INFANCY.. [By C. W. Saleeby, M.D., F.R.S.E.] It is admitted by all modern biologists tbat what are called n.cqiiired characters—such for instance as a scar—are not transmitted to children by either parent. A monstrous misunderstanding of this proposition has led a few writers to declare that the effects of alcoholism are similarly incapable of transmission, and that on the average children have an equal start whether their parents be alcoholic or not. But it is obvious, on a moment’s consideration, that the transmission of a scar is in an utterly different category from the registration in the new generation of the •consequences of the soaking of parental tissues by such a poison as this. Effect of Parental Intoxication. On the contrary, definite statistical inquiry in man and in the lower animals has proved that parental intoxication has marked effects upon offspring, varying “ from a moderate •enfeeblement of vitality to an extreme defect expressed in .still-birth or abortion.” (“Alcoholism,” by Dr. W. C. Sullivan, p. 185). Numerous experiments on the lower animals have verified the observations in man. Of these, many can scarcely be quoted here. There are definite cases on record, however, such as one recorded by Mr. Galton—- Avhich show the effect of progressive paternal alcoholism on successive children, and the facts are much more marked in the case of maternal alcoholism. Dr. Sullivan, in one inquiry ascertained that of 600 children born of 120 ■drunken mothers, 335 (58 per cent.) died in infancy or were still-born. Many of these women had female rela- tions of sober habits. On comparing the death rate](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28052808_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
