"
[Illustration: EFFECT OF LEAD AS A "RACIAL POISON"
FIG. 7.--That lead poisoning can affect the germ plasm of
rabbits is indicated by experiments conducted by Leon J. Cole at the
University of Wisconsin. With reference to the above illustration,
Professor Cole writes: "Each of the photographs shows two young from the
same litter, in all cases the mother being a normal (nonpoisoned)
albino. In each of the litters the white young is from an albino father
which received the lead treatment, while the pigmented offspring is from
a normal, homozygous, pigmented male. While these are, it is true,
selected individuals, they represent what tend to be average, rather
than extreme, conditions. The albino male was considerably larger than
the pigmented male; nevertheless his young average distinctly smaller in
size. Note also the brighter expression of the pigmented young."]
There is, then, a suspicion that lead is a racial poison, but no
evidence as yet as to whether the effect is permanent or in the nature
of an induction.
This concludes the short list of substances for which there has been any
plausible case made out, as racial poisons. Gonorrhea, malaria, arsenic,
tobacco, and numerous other substances have been mentioned from time to
time, and even ardently contended by propagandists to be racial poisons,
but in the case of none of them, so far as we know, is there any
evidence to support the claim.
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