ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 126, 6 September 1910, Page 3

ALCOHOLOGY.

TO BE W'KU, BOPvX. (Published by Arrangeincnh. Eugenics is the modern name for the branch of science which seeks to explain and to guide in the matter of "goodbegetting." Every child has the right to expect to be well born; and every actual or prospective parents is in duty bound to see to it that his or her offspring shall be be well begotten —well born. It is, too, a gratifying sign of the times that so much attention is now being given to this subject. To those who have given any attention to the subject of these articles —a.^liology—it must be plain that alcohol has a very large share in the ilHbegetting from which we now suffer. The evideitce is accumulating rapidly to show that the habits of parents and even grandparents, as to alcoholics, has a great influence on the physical and mental conditions of their offspring. We will not moralise, but give a few facts to prove this. Dr. Robt. Jones, F.R.C.S., of Claybury Asylum, says that "42 per cent, of all periodic inebriates relate ia history of either drink, insanity or epilepsy in their ancestors." Horsley says that '"only an insignificant number of drinkers' children are phy-j sically and mentally normal: 17.5 per; cent, according to Legrain and 6.4 per cent, according to Demme, and 11.7 perj : cent, according to Dcmvor nnd others. Arrive found tuberculosis in 10 per cent. ■ of drinkers' children, but only 1.8 per ! cent, among children of healthy parents." In 1901 Dr. MacXicholl, at the instance of the New York Academy of Medicine, examined 55,000 school children as to] alcohol being a cause for deficiency. Of I these 58 per cent, were below tlie required standard of intelligence. Here, how-j ! ever is tihe point: the habits of the I parents with regard to alcohol is reportI ed in 20,147 eases, as under: There were I I 6624 children of drinking parents, and ' | of these 53 per cent, were dullards: the I children of abstaining parents were 13,- ' 523, but of these only 10 per cent, were ' reported as dullards. He examined also ' the family history for three generations ' of 3711 children, and in great detail with

regard to the use of alcohol. Of the children of abstaining parents only 4 per cent, were dullards. Dividing the 3711 children into two classes, namely, those free from hereditary alcoholic taint and tliose with alcoholic taint. In 1 found great contrasts. Of the former class., free from alcohol, 1)0 per cent, were proficient and 4 per cent, were dullards; of the latter class, a drinking parentage, only 23 per cent, were proficient and 77 per cent, were dullards. Many more instances might be quoted, and investigation is .still being carried on both in Europe and America and all points to alcohol as the most fruitful source of "ill-begetting." When will we be wise? Show to a. poultry-fancier or a cattle-

breeder that certain diet and treatment of his animals is injurious, and he will soon correct it; yet in relation to our own race —the human race—the cro'wn of evolution, so far—there is something that seems to blur our vision or paralyse our action. Without relying on reports from elsewhere, how many of us can .see in families we know that the drinking of the parents has manifestly marred the quality of the children? There may be, and doubtless there are, other errors that stand in the way of ours being a thoroughly race; yet it would be the highest wisdom to take in band the evil we see and grapple with it. Better to spend some energy and make some sacrifice at once in the direction that experience plainly points than wait until we have found out all the I truth that the stUuy of eugenics may ' reveal. Why not rise up as a people , and say that we will not consider our j appetites or, as we think, protecting the public revenue; but let the individual | say that "as for me and my house we have done with this race-destroyer," and I for the nation to put eugenics before j economics. A dream, a vision of what will be, rises before one as he thinks what our country may be after two or three generations of people have lived in it free from alcohol—the land of the free, the beautiful, the healthy. A modern writer ,say,s: "It must be borne in mind that the upward trend of evolution is in favor of the effacement of morbid and wrong tendencies; that all things 'being equal, the good surmounts the evil, and that it is health which strives to have the last word."