A note on the influence of maternal inebriety on the offspring. 1899.

摘要

The object of the following paper is to present the result of a number of observations touching certain aspects of the question of habitual inebriety, notably the role of maternal alcoholism as an agent in race degeneracy.It has been observed by most authorities who have studied the various classes of individuals characterised by their incapacity to adapt themselves to normal social conditions, that these classes are largely recruited from the offspring of the alcoholic. This holds true whether that incapacity depends on the most glaring states of organic degeneracy, such as idiocy, or on those slighter forms of mental inferiority which appear to exist in at least a considerable proportion of habitual criminals and prostitutes.