is, in a way, mentally
defective; physical defects are frequently correlated in such stocks;
naturally the children inherit part or all of the parental defects
including, very likely, alcoholism; but the parent's alcoholism, we
repeat, must not be considered the _cause_ of the child's defect. The
child would have been defective in the same way, regardless of the
parent's beverage.

It follows, then, as a practical consequence for eugenics, that in the
light of present knowledge any campaign against alcoholic liquors would
be better based on the very adequate ground of physiology and economics,
than on genetics. From the narrowest point of view of genetics, the way
to solve the liquor problem would be, not to eliminate drink, but to
eliminate the drinker: to prevent the reproduction of the degenerate
stocks and the tainted strains that contribute most of the chronic
alcoholics. We do not mean to advocate this as the only proper basis for
the temperance campaign, because the physiological and economic aspects
are of sufficient importance to keep up the campaign at twice the
present intensity.[23] But it is desirable to have the eugenic aspect of
the matter clearly understood, and to point out that in checking the
production of defectives in the United States, eugenics will do its
share, and a big share, toward the solution of the drink problem, which
is at the same time being attacked along other and equally praiseworthy
lines by other people.

A number of other substances are sometimes credited with being racial
poisons.

The poison of _Spirochaete pallida_, the microoerganism which causes
syphilis, has been widely credited with a directly noxious effect on the
germ-plasm, and the statement has been made that this effect can be
transmitted for several generations. On the other hand, healthy children
are reported as being born to cured syphilitics. Further evidence is
needed, taking care to eliminate cases of infection from the parents. If
the alleged deterioration really occurs, it will still remain to be
determined if the effect is permanent or an induction, that is, a change
in the germ-cells which does not permanently alter the nature of the
inherited traits, and which would disappear in a few generations under
favorable conditions.

The case against lead is similar. Sir Thomas Oliver, in his _Diseases of
Occupation_, sums up the evidence as follows:

"Rennert has attempted to express in statistical terms the v