ALCOHOLISM ONE OF THE TWO CONTRIBUTING FACTORS IN MENTAL DEFICIENCY.

White Ribbon, Volume 33, Issue 400, 18 November 1928, Page 5

ALCOHOLISM ONE OF THE TWO CONTRIBUTING FACTORS IN MENTAL DEFICIENCY.

Dr. George Wilson, writing in the Philadelphia Evening Ledger on mental deficiencies in children, gives alcoholism in the parents as one ot the causative factors in the production of feeble-minded children, tlu* commonest single cause, as be says, being had heredity. Alcoholism was present in forty-si* per cent, of the cast* of one investigator. Dr. W ilson said: “Before the birth of a child, alcoholism in the mother has decidedly injurious consequences to the oflpring.” However, it is likely that tiie effect of alcohol is more often contributory than actual casual ♦ lie production of mental dt ficiency. Dr. W. C. Sullivan once conducted an inquiry regarding the children women, who were habitual dtinkets. and who had no physical or hereditary defects. Of these children. 300. which was fifty per cent, of the total number, either died in infancy ot were still-born. Of the remaining cent mentally defective and 4.1 per cent were epileptics. The proportion 1 t epileptics in the general population is one tenth of one per cent.”