Figure C 94 dealing with the +interconnection of tuberculosis, nervous diseases and psychoses of the progeny and the alcohol consumption of the father+, is derived from Bunge's investigations. It is worthy of notice that he endeavoured to eliminate from his statistics all families in whom hereditary diseases could be traced previously.
Table C 95 contains a summary of T. Laitinen's +experiments on animals with small quantities of alcohol+. The degree of injury to the progeny supposed to be produced by even a minimum quantity of alcohol (corresponding to about one-third of pint of beer for a man) is astounding. Repetition of these experiments on a large scale and with the strictest care would be most desirable here also.
Table C 96 also refers to reports by T. Laitinen.[C] +It deals with the effect of alcohol on the progeny in man+. Unfortunately Laitinen's paper is so confused and inexact that it is impossible for the reader safely to draw conclusions from it. His personal observations are mixed up with those gathered by means of inquiry sheets circulated by him in such a way that one cannot make out how he has arrived at his weights at birth and mortality. Information is lacking with regard to the nutrition of the children, their age at the conclusion of the investigations, the length of marriage, the rapidity of birth sequence and so on. It is, therefore, indispensable to await the more detailed report before Laitinen's information can be made use of.
[Footnote C: Internat. Monatschrift z. Erforschung des Alkoholismus, Juli, 1910.]
Bezzola has sent in in a modified form the data which he presented to the Eighth International Congress against Alcoholism in Vienna in 1901, on the +effect of acute intoxication on the origin of feeble-mindedness+. With their help the curve on Figure C 97 has been constructed, showing the distribution of illegitimate births in Switzerland during the different months of the year from Bezzola's data and the corresponding curve of the births of mentally eminent individuals (taken from Brockhaus' encyclopædia.) The author supplies the following comments:--
"+Comparison between the general birth curve and the corresponding one for the birth of feeble-minded children+."