Dr. Sullivan's enquiries show a very high rate of still-births and abortions amongst the children of drunken mothers—quite sufficient to prove that “the detrimental effect of maternal alcoholism must be in a large measure due to a direct influence on the germ-cells and on the developing embryo, and cannot be explained as merely a result of the neglect and malnutrition from which the children of a drunken mother are naturally apt to suffer.” The point is of some theoretical importance. Practically it matters little; in either case the drunken woman must not become a mother.
The same conclusion is reached even though we accord unlimited weight to the unquestionably valid argument that the drunkard is himself or herself usually degenerate from the first, and that the children are therefore degenerate, and would indeed be degenerate even if the parents had taken no alcohol. Let us, then, erroneously enough, but for the sake of the argument, assume that solely and always alcoholism is a symptom of degeneracy. It is, then, an indication of unfitness for parenthood no less, and the practical issue is the same: one radical cure for alcoholism, at any rate, is the prohibition of parenthood on the part of the alcoholic.[64]
The most recent evidence.—The most thorough and comprehensive enquiry into this matter yet made is also the most recent. We owe it to Dr. W. A. Potts, of the University of Birmingham, who did valuable work as Medical Investigator to the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded. His paper, entitled “The Relation of Alcohol to Feeble-mindedness,” is printed in the British Journal of Inebriety for January, 1909, together with communications from many authorities. It is quite impossible to summarise here the enormous mass of evidence which Dr. Potts has accumulated from the literature of the subject, and to which he has added his own work. I believe that nothing could be more moderate and assured than the following conclusions, to which he commits himself after a study of the subject the quality and range of which can only be appreciated at first hand:—
“... the evidence is not clear that alcoholism, by itself, in the father will produce amentia; but it is quite plain that in combination with other bad factors it is a most unfavourable element, while maternal drinking, and drinking continued through more than one generation, are potent influences in mental degeneracy.”
It is impossible, within the scope of the present volume, to analyse in detail the Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded. In this present outline of eugenics it is our business, however, to show main principles, and as the principle expressed in the phrase “racial poisons” is to my mind absolutely cardinal for eugenics, it is necessary here to comment, as I have already done in the Journal above quoted, upon the following most unfortunate deliverance of the Commissioners: “That both on the grounds of fact and of theory, there is the highest degree of probability that feeble-mindedness is usually spontaneous in origin—that is, not due to influences acting on the parent....”
The word spontaneous has, of course, no meaning for science, or rather is a denial of the fundamental axiom of science that causation is universal. What the Commissioners mean when they say spontaneous is “sportaneous,” like the occasional production of a nectarine by a peach tree. Apart from this highly suspicious phraseology, there is the still more unfortunate fact that the Commissioners have lent their authority to the view that feeble-mindedness is not due to influences acting on the parent. The modern student of syphilis will be astonished at this pronouncement, and also the student of lead-poisoning, as we shall see in the following chapter.
Every reader of Dr. Potts's admirable paper will realise that this conclusion of the Commissioners—“not due to influences acting on the parent”—is directly opposed to an extraordinary mass of evidence and to the opinion of, I suppose, every authority on the subject, British, Continental or American. The Commissioners' reference to “theory,” coupled with portions of the evidence given before them by witnesses who suppose that the alleged influence of alcohol as a cause of feeble-mindedness controverts the doctrine of the non-transmission of “acquired characters,” makes it necessary to point out for the hundredth time that, for lack of analysis and criticism of terms, the most prominent followers of Galton and Weismann persistently misunderstand their masters' teaching. The modern doctrine of the individual as the trustee of the germ-cells and of the non-transmission of acquired characters is Mr. Galton's. Mr. Galton himself does not question and never has questioned the possibility that alcohol may cause feeble-mindedness. There is no reason why he should. If we take the somewhat unusual course of consulting the words of the masters before we swear by them, we find—as has been shown—that Weismann, who subsequently stated and has so greatly supported Mr. Galton's view, has expressly repudiated the Commissioners' idea of his “theory.” The Galton-Weismann doctrine is a doctrine of heredity proper,—the organic relation of living generations. It does not assert that there are two unconnected universes—the one made of germ-plasm and the other of the rest of nature. The “grounds of theory,” or rather, our elementary physiological knowledge of the nutrition of the germ-plasm by the blood of its host, are in reality precisely the grounds which would lead us to expect those consequences of parental alcoholism which in fact we find.
Alcoholism as a symptom of degeneracy.—We have seen that alcohol may be a cause of degeneracy: we now have to recognize the converse relation. For an authoritative and radical discussion of the problem, the reader may be referred to the second Norman Kerr Memorial Lecture, delivered by Dr. Welsh Branthwaite, H.M. Inspector under the Inebriates' Act, in 1907.[65] He speaks as “the only man in close touch with all inebriates under legal detention in England.” He reaches most important conclusions which are generally accepted, as the discussion shows. He says, “the more I see of habitual drunkards, the more I am convinced that the real condition we have to study, the trouble we have to fight, and the source of all the mischief, is ... defect[66] in mental mechanism, generally congenital, sometimes more or less acquired.... In the absence of alcohol, the same persons, instead of meriting the term inebriate would have proved unreliable in many ways; they would have been called ne'er-do-weels, profligates, persons of lax morality, excitably or abnormally passionate individuals, persons of melancholic tendency or eccentric.... It seems to me exceedingly doubtful whether habitual inebriety ... is ever really acquired in the strictest sense of the word—i.e. in the absence of some measure of pre-existing defect.” Having studied 2,277 inebriates, committed under the Inebriates Acts, up to December 31st, 1906, Dr. Branthwaite finds 62.6 per cent. of these mentally defective. The remainder he regards as of average mental capacity, using, however, an exceedingly low standard of what that capacity is. He concludes that in a large majority of police-court cases, “mental disease was the condition for which they were repeatedly imprisoned—mental disease merely masked by alcoholic indulgence.... The majority of our insane inebriates have become alcoholic because of their tendency to insanity.... Certain peculiarities in cranial conformation, general physique, and conduct, have long been recognised as evidences of congenital defect. Nearly all the 1,375 cases included in the two defective sections of our table have given evidence of possessing some of these characteristic peculiarities, and it is morally certain that the large majority of them started life handicapped by imperfect brain development.”[67] The lecture is accompanied with many photographs clearly showing the physical marks of congenital defect, and Dr. Branthwaite remarks that “even the untrained eye should meet with no difficulty in recognising ‘something wrong’ with all of them.”
Of the proportion of mentally defective inebriates (62.6 per cent. of the whole) mentioned by Dr. Branthwaite, all are “practically hopeless from a reformation standpoint.” This is a sufficient comment, if any were needed, upon repeated imprisonment for habitual drunkenness—which, as Dr. Branthwaite says, “is indefensible and inhumane.” He adds in closing that, in his judgment, habitual drunkenness, so far as women are concerned, has materially increased, during the last twenty-five years, “which I have spent entirely amongst drunkards and drunkenness.” The unfortunate people whom he studies “are not in the least affected by orthodox temperance efforts; they continue to propagate drunkenness, and thereby nullify the good results of temperance energy. Their children, born of defective parents, and educated by their surroundings, grow up without a chance of decent life, and constitute the reserve from which the strength of our present army of habituals is maintained. Truly we have neglected in the past, and are still neglecting, the main source of drunkard supply—the drunkard himself; cripple that, and we should soon see some good result from our work.”
A foremost authority, Dr. F. W. Mott, F.R.S., has independently reached the same conclusion as Dr. Branthwaite—that the chronic inebriate comes as a rule of an inherently tainted stock. (Dr. Mott, however, reminds us that “if alcohol is a weed killer, preventing the perpetuation of poor types, it is probably even more effective as a weed producer.”) Professor David Ferrier, F.R.S., the great pioneer of brain localisation, in reference to these people, speaks of “the risk of propagation of a race of drunkards and imbeciles.” Dr. J. C. Dunlop, H.M. Inspector under the Inebriates Act, Scotland, states that his experience leads him to precisely the same conclusion as that of Dr. Branthwaite. Dr. A. R. Urquhart, an asylum authority, affirms that chronic inebriety “is largely an affair of heredity ... is a symptom of mental defect, disorder, or disease.” Dr. Fleck, another authority, says: “It is my strong conviction that a large percentage of our mentally defective children, including idiots, imbeciles and epileptics, are the descendants of drunkards.” Mr. McAdam Eccles, the distinguished surgeon, agrees; so does Dr. Langdon Down, Physician to the National Association for the Welfare of the Feeble-minded; so does Mr. Thomas Holmes, the Secretary of the Howard Association, who remarks that “our habitual criminals, equally with our mental inebriates, are not responsible beings, but victims of mental disease.” Finally Miss Kirby, Secretary of the National Association for the Feeble-minded, insists upon the obvious conclusion that these people must be detained permanently. She says, “When one case of a dissolute feeble-minded woman in America is quoted as the mother of nine feeble-minded children, we see the cause why inebriate homes, and also reformatories, penitentiaries, and workhouses are full to overflowing, and society taxed beyond bearing to keep them there. Such institutions outnumber homes for the feeble-minded.”[68] Speaking of the 62.6 per cent. noted by Dr. Branthwaite, she says, “Would it not have been the more logical course to have dealt with them in earlier years?” Now what would that have accomplished? It would have saved the future.