SAVE THE BABIES.

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 269, 19 November 1917, Page 1

SAVE THE BABIES.

liow often has this motto and

others of similar meaning greetc i us from show windows and hoardings during the last week or two. Our newspapers have given much information on how to care for “our best immigrants.” Doctors and Social Reformers have lectured on babies and baby-culture. While agreeing with most that has been said, we think that to find the cause we must probe deeper than has yet been done. V- hat is it that wrecks so oft the cradle ship ere its precious freight can be landed upon the shores of time, or brings the cargo to the starting poin: in such a weakened condition that voyage of life is no sooner begun than it is ended? From statistics taken in the United States, it was shown that of the babies that die under one year old, 14 per cent, lived less than a day, 30 per tent, lived under one week, and 45 per cent, under a month. No amount of postnatal care would save these little immigrants; they were doomed ere they were born. As General Booth puts it, “They were damned into the world, not born.” And what arc the causes of this fearful mortality. All experts agree that the twin evils of Alcohol and the Red Plague rob us of these little strangers that we need so badly to supply the place of those whom the red fangs of war have swallowed up. Over 90 per cent, of cases of Red Plague are admittedly due to alcohol. When our {ousins in America have put their \roops “on the water waggon,” the officers report, “No offences and no venereal disease.” Therefore, when

the Empire asks the question, “Where are my children,” the reply comes from every student of this subject, “Stolen from you by King Alcohol.” Dr. Ballantyne states, in summing up the results of experimental work regarding the effects of alcohol in pre-natal lift*: “There is good reason to believe, on the evidence whic h has been thus collected, that alcohol produces its most serious and lasting evil effects in the germinal period.” The am ient nations possessed sufficient knowledge to make them very specific in denouncing a'roholic conceptions. Diogenes said to a stupid child. “Young man, thy father was very drunk when thy mother conceived thee.” Also we may note the observations made b> experts as to the greater frequency of idiocy and mortality among children conceived during carnival seasons. “The longtinued expeinnents of Stockard and Papinicolaou on guinea pigs have placed the degenerative effects of al cohol on germ cells practically beyond the reach of criticism,” says Dr. Ballantyne. The points chiefly noted in these experiments are the following:—The animals who inhaled alcohol were little changed or injured so far as their behaviour and their structure were concerned, but evil effects were emphatically shown in the off spring to which they gave rUe, and these effects were produced whether the alcoholised animals were mated together or w ith normal ind '.duals. The bad effects were manifest in the first generation of offspring, but they were still more marked and serious in later generations; then the young ones were born weakly, suffered from a neurosis resembling paralysis agi-

tans, and in some instances were monsters with eye deformity. The great and outstanding fact appears to be that alcohol produces an injurious effect upon the so-called carriers of heredity in the germ cells of one generation, which can be seen not in less but in more marked degree in the great-grande hildren of the original pair of animals. We quote the following from an article in “McClure’s Magazine,” March, 1917: —“Young women should be told plainly that the procreative powers of the heavy drinker, or even of the steady, moderate drinker, are seriously impaired, not always sufficiently, however, to prevent him from having defective children. As illustrating what hereditary damage is done by even moderate drinking, I may mention the case of tiv ■ distinguished brothers who, 25 years ago, were heads of corporations, bank presidents, men who made and spent large sums of money. One of them held a very high position in the United States Government. They were all moderate drinkers, and all died at a good age, apparently none the worse for this indulgence, but--of their 18 sons not one made a success of his life. All were either steady drinkers or heavy drinkers. Twothirds of them did before they were 35, and only one of them readied the age of 50. 'I bis one, a friend of mine, a man in poor health, admits that he cannot live without whisky. His only daughter, a young woman of 28, died recently of cerebro-spinal meningitis, and her little child of four has been attacked by the same disease.” Another case recently noted was that of a man v ho died at

5 v from the effects of alcohol. One of his sons is a feeble-minded, drunken sot; another has sporadic sprees, when he becomes violent and uncontrolled. One daughter is a harmless alcoholic wreck, so degraded that her children will not take her into their homes. Of her six children, one is feeble-minded, and one highly neurotic. Another daughter was feeble-minded. Her eldest child is a mental defective and a criniin.il; the second is moody and feeble-mind-ed ; the youngest is a cripple and mentally deficient. Of 23 descendants of this man, iS have been in public or private institutions. Or. Gordon publishes in a medical journal three family histories wlncn are most instructive. In the first group, covering four generations, the great-grandlather was strongly alcoholic. In the three generations following there are 22 descendants, of whom only three are normal. There were two miscarriages, three stillborn, one died at four, one developed tuberculosis and died at twelve, tine/ were backward, two epileptic, on ■ alcoholic and epileptic, one an eccentric alcoholic with a violent temper, one a somnambulist, two had S.. Vitus dance or a tendency to it. In the s corn! family alcohol was piesent in the grandfather and one son. 1 he latter had three children, of whom one died at six months in convulsions, one is epileptic, and the thiol is a masturbator. Of fourteen descendants of the alcoholic grandfather, only three wire apparently normal. In the third family, the family tree is traced from the grandparents, one of whom was profoundU alcoholic. Of 15 descendants of this alcoholic grandfather, only two were normal. Three were stillborn ; one an alcoholic weakling; one defective, both physica ly and mentally ; two ipileptic; two choreic; one a thief; one had a viol nt temper, and could not keep a position; one was a somnambulist; one sexually vicious. “It appears to be reasonably certain,” says !)r. (iordon. “that aloohol sm alone can be incriminated as a direct cause of the striking abnormalities traced in the *everal successive generations. The conclusion to which these exception, lly striking pedigre s lead is that a'roholised ind viduals procreate defective children. One sm h family is capable of throw - ing into the community dozens of

useless or dangerous individuals, who, if capable of multiplying, will produce their like. Facts like these cannot be too widely known. The burden upon the taxpayer of supporting institutions for these physical and mental defectives created by alcohol is becoming well nigh unbearable. Alcohol robs the nation of its “best immigrants' ; it robs the child of its right to be well born; it fills our hospitals, our mental hospitals, our gaols, and our poorhouses. It stands pilloried on “infamy’s high stage” as tin- gre test child-murderer, race exterminator, .nd national efficiency destroyer of all the ages. Is it not time a sane people voted it out?