Observing the same glands in
non-alcoholics who had died of various chronic diseases, such as
tuberculosis, he found no such condition. His conclusion is that the
reproductive glands are more sensitive to the effects of alcohol than
any other organ. So far as is known to us, his results have never been
discredited; they have, on the contrary, been confirmed by other
investigators. They are of great significance to eugenics, in showing
how the action of natural selection to purge the race of drunkards is
sometimes facilitated in a way we had not counted, through reduced
fertility due to alcohol, as well as through death due to alcohol. But
it should not be thought that his results are typical, and that all
chronic alcoholists become sterile: every reader will know of cases in
his own experience, where drunkards have large families; and the
experimental work with smaller animals also shows that long-continued
inebriety is compatible with great fecundity. It is probable that
extreme inebriety reduces fertility, but a lesser amount increases it in
the cases of many men by reducing the prudence which leads to limited
families.
In 1910 appeared the investigation of Miss Ethel M. Elderton and Karl
Pearson on school children in Edinburgh and Manchester.
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