Alcoholism and Offspring.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 23 July 1910, Page 4

Alcoholism and Offspring.

EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENTS. The effect of habitual alcoholic indulgence upon the physical development and intellectual activity ol tiie children of those who so indulge has for many years furnished, material for the eloquence of total abstainers, and has almost invariably been assumed to be injurious. As much as sixty years ago so generally philosophical and accurate a thinker as the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter permitted himself to write of " the innumerable diseased organisms which spring leoiii the le.'ns of the drunkard," and the indictment thus framed against excess has been repented in many forms. Probably for the first time, the question of its .accuracy has recently been subjected to strict inquiry; and the results, so far as iTsuils have heen obtained, are set forth in a recent publication issued by the Francis Galtou Laboratory for National Eugenics. The investigation has been conducted by M.iss Ethel M. Eldrrton, Galton Research Scholar in the University of London, assisted by Professor Ivarl Pearson, E. 8.5.; and its results have been so far from confirming popular impressions upon the subject to which they relate that the authors of the report iu which they are embodied may almost be said to ap'drgise for them. TJie inquiry which Miss Elder-ton and Professor Pearson has conducted has been confined within tin* definite limits indicated by the words ''childhood" and ''children," and has not extended to the very important question (concerning which materials are being eo'lleetcd) of whether the offspring of alcoholics, on reaching adult age, have any greater tendency 'than persons of normal parentage to become alcoholics themselves. The immediate object has been to ascertain whether the children of alcoholics present any appreciable inferiority t'o the children of sober people, in nspjet either of physical development.. of intellectual activity, or of lunitoness of sense perception ; and able to obtain any evidence in supable t oobtai any evidence in i upport of an affirmative conclusion. 'live materials available for the conduct of the invcstigtio-n have b; < n derived from two sources, an account of the children in the "special"' schools of Manchester, pi led by M iss Mary Dendy. and a report from the Edinburgh Charity Organi-atiiMi Society concerning the children of one of the ordimarv oleinentary schools of that city. The total umber of children examined was. as far a* we can make out, in Edinburgh 585 boys and -477 girls, in Manctuster 1133 boys and 1109 girls, or a gaoss total of 4GOI children. In the M,'i-nchester daLa the parents were divided into "temperate" and "intemperate." and informa--11 was given about tho health and, in most cases, about the intell.gvnce of the brothers and sisters .if the mentally defective child. In the Edinburgh report more details were given as to the degree and kind of the drinking of the parrots, who were divisible into five

. 1 s-;. s (1) teetotaler, (2) sober, C'») su.speated to drink, (4) drinlv.s, (5) has bouts of drinking. Classes i and 3 were too small to be kept •i.-par-ate. so that teetotalers were included with the sober, and sus pe-ted drinkers with drinkers. The general conclusions arrived at are stated ill the follow'ng terms : - - (1) There is a higher death-rate among the offspring of alcoholic than among the offspring of sober parents, hut owing to the greater fertility of alcoholic parents, the net family ef the sober is hardly larger than the net fa mil v of the alcoholic. (2) The mean weight and height ::l the children of alcoholic par- : nts are slightly greater than those oi' seiier pan nts, but as the age o.f the former children is slightly greater the correlations when corrected for age are slightly positive i.e., there is slightly greater height and weight iu the children of the sober. (3) The wages of the alcohoitc as contra ■■■ted with those of the sooer parent show a slight diiforeiiee compatible with the employers' dislike ior an alcoholic employe, but wholly inconsistent with a marked mental or physical inferiority in the aJcoholie parent. (!) The general health of the children of alcoholic parents appears on the whole slightly better than that ol (the children of) sober parents. There are fewer delicate children, and in >a most marked way cases ol tuberculosis and epilepsy are less Ir; qiient than among 'the children oi sobti- parents. The source ol this ii latiou may be sought ui two directions; the physically strongest in the commiiiiity have probably 'the greatest capaoiev and tastt fi.r alcohol. Further, me higher death-rate of the children of alcoholic parents probably leaves tie litter t-a survive. Epilepsy and MibcM eulosis both depending upon inherited constitutional conditions, they will be more common in theparents of affected offspring, and, probably if combined with alcohol, are incompatible with any length of life or much size of familv. If

these views be correct, we can oiniy say that parental alcoholism has no marked effect on filial health. (•">) Parental alooholsm is not ' le source of mental defect in offspring. ((>) The relationship, if any, uetween pa.ren'tal alcoholism and filial intelligence is so slight that even ics sign cannot be determtfiKxl from the present material. (7) The normal visioned. and 1101nnil rel'ractioned offspring ap])ear to lie in rather a preponderance in the families of the drinking parents, the pa rents who have "bouts" give intermediate results, but there is no substantial relation between goodness of sight and parental ilcoliolism. (8) The frequency of diseases of the e.ve and eyelids, which might well be .attributed to parental neglect. was found to have little, if anv, relation to parental .alcoholism To sum up, 110 marked re'a-'on has been found between .he iue •- geuce, physique, or disease of the offspring and parental aUohjiism in ftny or tlio cn-toqiories i On the whole, the balance turns as often in favour of the alcoliolic as "t the non-alcoholic parentage Other categories may give a differefc result, but the experience of the authors with regard to 'he influence of environment lms now b- en m considerable 'that they liardv I)'"neve large correlations are Mkcly to occur.--London Times.