Injury to the reproductive function through alcohol. It has been known for a long time that drunkards are frequently sterile. This must be attributed to the fact that the testicles of drunkards become to a great extent atrophied. The condition is shown in Figure C 89 by R. Weichselbaum, [B] representing a section through the testicle of a drunkard. Figure C 90 which shows a section through a normal testicle, enables even the layman to observe the atrophy of the characteristic glandular tissue of the testicle. Weichselbaum has up to now found that in fifty-four cases, without exception, in which alcoholism had been proved, this atrophy could be demonstrated to a greater or less degree. In thirty of these cases the subject was so young that senile atrophy was out of the question. The abuse of alcohol is not the only harmful influence which is able to induce such atrophy of the testicles, but chronic alcoholism acts with special intensity. Very similar results to those of Weichselbaum have been obtained by Bertholet (Zentralbl. f. allg. Pathologie 20 Bd. 1909) in 37 out of 39 habitual drunkards. They agree with observations on the vesiculae seminales of drunkards by Simmonds, who found that in 61% of the cases examined the spermatozoa were absent or dead. It is a permissible assumption that a poison which can cause the total atrophy of the sexual glands may, in an earlier stage, have adversely influenced in respect to quality the function of those organs.
[B] Verhandlungen der Deutschen Patholog: Gesellschaft, 14th day, Jena, Fischer, 1910, page 234.
Alcohol and Degeneration, from the tables on the alcohol question by Gruber and Kraepelin, Munich; Lehmann; contains the well-known statistics of Demme, Bunge, and Arrivée. Table C 92 adds to the summary of the statistical observations of Demme, further details of the kind of abnormalities which were observed in children of drunkards. Representing, as they do, exceptionally bad cases with a high degree of degeneration, one may doubt whether and in how far congenital hereditary inferiority of the parents may have had its influence.
Figure C 93 contains the well-known result of v. Bunge's investigations on the influence of paternal alcoholism on the suckling capacity of the daughters. The varying frequency of the habitual consumption of alcohol and of drunkenness proper of the father in the two groups of families is most striking. Official investigations of this question on a large scale are urgently called for.
Figure C 94 dealing with the interconnection of tuberculosis, nervous diseases and psychoses of the progeny and the alcohol consumption of the father, is derived from Bunge's investigations. It is worthy of notice that he endeavoured to eliminate from his statistics all families in whom hereditary diseases could be traced previously.