120Section I.A. Marro.
One of the disturbing causes to inheritance, in appearance at least, lies
in the fact that the union of characters of the parents is not always homo
geneous. Father and mother bring into the act of generation a number of
aptitudes, some visible, some latent, which they themselves have received
from their parents. If the union is such that the good germs can be added
together, then the good qualities of the father and the mother will arrive
at a degree of almost surprising development. If, on the other hand, the
qualities of the mother are contrasted with those of the father, and vice
versa, mediocre children may be born from two distinguished parents.
The effects of this disturbing cause of inheritance, difficult to calculate,
are insufficient to explain all the true or apparent anomalies. As a single
example those cases would be inexplicable in which there supervenes a
difference amounting sometimes to a disparity of characters amongst different
children born of the same parents. Consequently one must admit other
influences. Between two acts of generation there may take place and arise modifica
tions in the organs of the parents which must be reflected upon the children
who are born.
We have a direct proof of the law in the anomalies found in children
of parents who found themselves in anomalous conditions at the time of
generation. In the physical order, Darwin cites a very luminous case : A bull on
coming out of the stable had its tail cut off by the door shutting suddenly
upon him. All the calves begotten by this bull were born without tails.
The Brown-Sequard experiment, which I myself often repeated, of
rendering guinea-pigs epileptic by the re-section of the sciatic nerve, is
classical. The young ones which were born were themselves epileptic.
An accidental condition, and sometimes even a temporary condition,
of the parents, such as drunkenness, exercises a powerful influence upon
generation. Science has henceforth put out of controversy the fact that not
only the habitual alcoholism of one or of both parents, but also the simple
condition of drunkenness at the moment of the act of generation, suffices
to transmit degenerative characters to the children.
The hereditary influence of alcoholism had not escaped the attention
of the ancients. Mythological tradition hands down that the deformity
of Vulcan was due to the condition of drunkenness of his father, Jupiter,
at the moment when he begot him, and according to Plato* the Cartagenians
forbade by a law the use of alcoholic liquors to married couples when they
wished to procreate children, in order to avoid the disastrous effects trans
mitted by inheritance.
Morel attributes to the degenerative influence of alcoholism the complete
abolition of the moral sense, the diminution of physical sensibility and the
destruction of strength.
* Platon. Des Lois. Livre V., p. 128, traduction de V. Conti-Paris, 1831.
