MISTAKE SOMEWHERE!

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 846, 18 June 1910, Page 10

MISTAKE SOMEWHERE!

Sir, —Tlie statement in your editorial note-of this morning. attributed to a ' "Memoir" issued by the* "Frtuicfe "Galtoii"" Eugenics 'Laboratory ... is entirely ait variance with tlie practically. unanimous •findings- of the medical'-" world-'- that' one is driven to the conclusion that either the memoir has been misquoted, or its purport has' been misunderstood. The statements that ''the children of the in-' temperate ure generally healthier than the children of the sober," and "there is a greater percentage of consumptive • and epileptic children in the families of the sober than the intemperate, hardly need expert evidence to disprove. If they were 'true, as you state them, then, obviously, to secure healthier children we ought to promote intemperance; to lessen the dreaded scourge of consumption and decrease epilepsy we ought to promote intemperance, which conclusion# contain in themselves their otvn^disproof. All the evidence available'goes in exactly the tfl>ix>.4fe direction; and the evidence is abundant. Faqts and figures in overwhelming quantities have been accumulated by-the most competent authorities. Incontrovertible official evidence is forthcoming, showing that bodily incompetence- and mental inefficiency are in surprising proportion due to inebriety. You, Sir. Editor, cannot 'be ignorant of the mass of evidence concerning drink-caused national deterioration as presented in the "Inter-.Departmen.tal Committee's Report. on Physical Deterioration," or of the equally striking and painful evidence in the still more recent "Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of tho Feeble-minded." Both these reports presented to the British Parliament cover evidence from the most reliable authorities, and the conclusions in each case are entirely at variance with what you state to bo tho findings of the recent "Memoir." It is indeed a definitely-established fact that only an insignificant number of drinkers' children are physically and mentally normal; only 17.5 per cent, according to Lcgrain; 0.-l per cent., according to Deiume; or 11.7 jier cent., accord- ; ing to Dejnoor. In his investigation, as j recorded in "Alcoholism and Morphinism in Relation to Marriage," Arrive found tuberculosis in 10 per cent, of drinkers 1 children, but only in 1.8 per cent, among the children of healthy parents. "The K-eport of the Royal Commission on Feeble-minded, 1903," already referred to, declares that "alcoholism in" one or both parents. exerts its influence'in the production of feeble-mindedness a.ud epilepsy, and alio by lowering the normal ! resistive power in tho offspring renders them liable (o break down under various stresses later on in life, and so become insane." In 3&01 Dr. MacNicho.ll conducted ail exhaustive investigation into the mental deficiency of ordinary children for the Ken* York Academy of Medicine. In this the effect of alcohol as a factor in the causation of such deficiency was strikingly shown. 55,000 sc'hool children were examined. Of these 5S per cent, were below the required standard of intelligence, 17 per cent, being actually "dullards," 25 per cent, "very deficient, and tho other 1G per cent, merely deficient. Striking results were ascertained :— Children of drinking parents, 6G21; Children of drinking parents reported dullards, 53 per cent.; : Children of abstaining-parents, 13,523; j Children of abstaining parents re- j ported dullards, 10 per cent. ! The family histories of 3711 children were traced in great detail. Dividing these into two classes—(l) Free from hereditary alcoholic taint, and (12) with hereditary alcoholic taint—the following striking contrasts wero revealed:— (!) Free from hereditary alcoholic taint: DG per cent, efficients, 4 per cent, dullards, 18 per cent, suffered from neurosis or organic disease. (2) With hereditary alcoholic taint: 23 per cent, efficients, 77 per Cent, dullards, 7G per cent, suffered from neurosis or organic disease. Faots of this order could be multiplied ad lib. I have not seen the Memoir to which you refer, but I suspect, when it is more carefully examined, it will be seen to 1)0 dealing with the now established influence of. healthy heredity upon tho children of even the Ihird and fourth generations. Given two or three generations of healthy forbears, so splendid is the entail of healthfulness transmitted that even where the immediate parent indulges in the so markedly crippling and • vicious habit of intemperance oven that d<»p* not whnl.lv djunoiß the splendid

heritage. But such a conclusion, instead of at all looking in the direction your editorial suggests, only makes more markedly criminal tho conduct of any who, by self-indulgence, wrecks that so noble heritage.—l am, etc., AUTnUB DEWDNEY. [Wo do not question that 11 r. Dewdney's 'views nro thoso generally accepted, lie is wrong, however, in thinking there has been a misquotation or misunderstanding issued by the Eugenics Laboratory, tho facts concerning which we obtained from that good friend of temperance, and enemy of alcohol tlft "Miuiclicster Guardian." The inquiry was carried out by Dr. Karl Pearson and Miss Ethel 11. Elderton, one of tho workers 'in tho laboratory. T|io material which was used for the purpose of compiling tho tables of results consisted of two scries of statistics bearing on drink and its cli'ect o:i the children. The first was the report of tho Edinburgh Organisation Society. This society arranged to oxamino all Ihe homes of children attending a eerlain school, which was chosen because it hail on its rolls children from the poorest parts of the city, together with an admixture of the comfortable and respectable working class. The parents were divided into five-classes—(l) Teetotaler, (2) sober, (3) suspected to drink, (J) diinks, (5) has bouts of drinking. Tho other data were obtained from 'Manchester, where- Miss Xlnry Bendy made a report on the schools for mentally defective nnd physically defective children. The characteristics observed w;re height, weight, general health, intelligence, eyesight, eye disease, and death rate. Tho "Standard" of May '2 quotes the following passages from tho memoir:—"Tho general health of the children of alcoholic parents appears on tho whole slightly better than that of sober parents. There ure fewer delicate children, and in a most marked way cases of tuberculosis and epilepsy are ' less frequent than among the children of sober parents. The source of this relation may bo sought in two directions. The physically strongest in. the community have probably the.greatest capacity anil tasto for alcohol.". Tho general death rate is higher in the case of children (boys and girls added together) of alcoholic than in the ease, of children of sober parents, yet "owing to the greater fertility of alcoholic parents the not family of the sober is hardly larger than the net family of the alcoholic." Our note was intended merely to emphasise tho great uncertainty of much of tho modern ranpirical treatment of difficult social questions. Tho writers of (he memoir, struck by the oddity of somo ot iho results, conclude that they were, due to certain physical and possibly mental characteristics which appear to bo associated with alcohol, and they accordingly urged temperance reformers to investigate these causes of intemperance, and to pursue their work by recognising that "the fundamental problem of those who aro fighting alcoholism is one with tho fundamental problem of eugenics."]