Berthelot and Weichsel baum have shown independently that in the majority of male alcoholic patients dying in the prime of life there is atrophy of the testicles and absence or scanty production of spermatozoa. In the female subject alterations of a similar character may be discovered in the ovaries. Morbid changes of the same type can be produced in the genital glands of experimental animals (rabbits, dogs, guinea-pigs) by continued administration of alcohol; and further, there is direct experimental evidence that parental alcoholism may react injuriously upon the vitality and normal development of the offspring. Alcohol was administered to guinea-pigs by inhalation; and the progeny of the alcoholised animals, in comparison with the young of "control" animals of the same stock, were found to be conspicuously inferior in strength and vitality, and in many instances presented gross abnormalities of organisation. These ill-effects were transmitted through several generations, and were, indeed, more pronounced in the later generations than in the immediate offspring of the alcoholised subjects. Even when there are no structural changes visible in the germ-cells, the injurious influence of the intoxication may be manifested in the progeny.1 In view of the great importance of these results, indicating as they do a possibility of the deterioration of the race through parental alcoholism, it is considered well to suspend judgment on these experiments until the conclusions have been verified by further investigation.2

1 " Alcohol and the Human Body," p. 206.