Table C 95 contains a summary of T. Laitinen's experiments on animals with small quantities of alcohol. The degree of injury to the progeny supposed to be produced by even a minimum quantity of alcohol (corresponding to about one-third of pint of beer for a man) is astounding. Repetition of these experiments on a large scale and with the strictest care would be most desirable here also.
Table C 96 also refers to reports by T. Laitinen. [C] It deals with the effect of alcohol on the progeny in man. Unfortunately Laitinen's paper is so confused and inexact that it is impossible for the reader safely to draw conclusions from it. His personal observations are mixed up with those gathered by means of inquiry sheets circulated by him in such a way that one cannot make out how he has arrived at his weights at birth and mortality. Information is lacking with regard to the nutrition of the children, their age at the conclusion of the investigations, the length of marriage, the rapidity of birth sequence and so on. It is, therefore, indispensable to await the more detailed report before Laitinen's information can be made use of.
[ [C] Internat. Monatschrift z. Erforschung des Alkoholismus, Juli, 1910.
Bezzola has sent in in a modified form the data which he presented to the Eighth International Congress against Alcoholism in Vienna in 1901, on the effect of acute intoxication on the origin of feeble-mindedness. With their help the curve on Figure C 97 has been constructed, showing the distribution of illegitimate births in Switzerland during the different months of the year from Bezzola's data and the corresponding curve of the births of mentally eminent individuals (taken from Brockhaus' encyclopædia.) The author supplies the following comments:—
"Comparison between the general birth curve and the corresponding one for the birth of feeble-minded children."
The casual observation at the registration of the personal history of feeble-minded individuals that 50 per cent. of the birth dates fall within only fourteen weeks of the year (New Year, carnival, and wine harvest) has aroused the desire to deal with the seasonal incidence of the begetting of the feeble-minded on the basis of as much material as possible. For this purpose the author's census of feeble-minded school children, which took place in the year 1897, and referred to the years 1886-90 inclusive, seemed specially suited. Originally (in 1901) a curve was plotted in which all the 8,186 feeble-minded and idiotic children were included whose exact birthdays were known, and this curve was compared with the total curve for that period. (Schweiz. Statistik 112 Liefg.) The latter was constructed in the following manner from the whole number of births (934,619) which occurred in these eleven years:—The general daily average was taken as 100, and the daily average for each month was expressed proportionately. Thus numbers above 100 show a daily birth frequency above the average, while for numbers below 100 the reverse is the case. The curve for the 8,136 feeble-minded persons was constructed in a similar way, and thus a comparison with the general population producing them was made possible. Subsequently (1910-11), in order to secure homogeneous material, the first and last years were left out, since by including them, owing to the non-agreement of the school year and the astronomical year, the earlier months (January-April) were much weighted. By this restriction of the material dealt with the number of feeble-minded is reduced to 7,759, but the material for each separate year is more homogeneous. Distributed between 2,922 days (eight years), the daily production of the feeble-minded is 2.648, the corresponding total number of births of the years 1882-89 ls 677,083, or 231.7 per day. 1.14 per cent. of all births are included in the figure for the feeble-minded. If one treats the total number of births for each month as well as the number of births of feeble-minded according to the method described above, and used by the Federal Statistical Bureau, two curves are produced which diverge considerably from each other in particular months. On the whole the curve for the feeble-minded (thick line) is flatter than the curve for the total. Especially striking are the drop in May and June (corresponding to the procreation period from the 25th July to the 23rd September) and two peaks rising above the "total" curve. One of these is slight, yet distinct. It refers to the months of birth, July and August, corresponding with the procreation period from the 24th September to the 24th November. More conspicuous is the second peak of the curve for the feeble-minded from October to December, otherwise a time poor in births. The centre of the corresponding period of procreation (25th December to 26th March) is in February (carnival). This seems to confirm the suspicion that during the wine harvest and carnival an increased procreation of feeble-minded occurs (procreation during drunkenness?).
We cannot suppress the remark that the fluctuations of the curve for the feeble-minded are much too small to admit of the drawing of an ætiological conclusion, but the fluctuations of the intelligence curve and the illegitimate curve partly exceed the limits of probable error. The peaks of both birth curves in February, correspond to a peak in the procreation curve in May. Perhaps one may attribute them to the existence of a remnant of a period of "heat" (or a rutting season) in man.