"Alcoholism among the ancients was therefore mainly or exclusively known in its acute phases, the drunken frenzy in which Alexander the Great killed Clitus being a familiar example. With the introduction of tobacco and playing cards, the saloon, the cellar-dive, and the bar-room usurped the place formerly held by the inn. The enlargement of cities deprived their inhabitants of rustic sports, and led to their seeking in other and more dangerous channels an escape from mental and physical strain, and a variation of routine monotony. It is generally conceded by those medical writers who are unshackled by prejudice that a certain amount of alcohol can be ingested with perfect impunity. That amount has been accurately determined by Dujardin-Beaumetz in the course of experiments made in the abattoirs of Paris. Transferring the result of his experiments to the human species, he concluded that a man weighing 120 pounds could take the equivalent of two ounces of alcohol a day for years without injury to any organ of the body. But when the amount taken daily exceeds the toleration-point, prolonged abuse is followed by results which are as sinister as they are insidious. In the dead-house of the Philadelphia Hospital, Formad found that, of 250 chronic alcoholists, nearly 99 per cent had fatty degeneration of the liver, 60 per cent had congestion or a dropsical state of the brain, the same proportion an inflamed or degenerated stomach, while not quite 1 per cent had normal kidneys. Of 17 children of drunken fathers observed by Voisin, 3 were idiots, 2 confirmed epileptics, 1 suffered from a congenital spinal disease, and the remainder died in early life with convulsions. Of 11 children similarly descended, cited by Dagonet, 9 died in the same way. Of 117 such births recorded in Alsace-Lorraine, 13 were still-born and 39 died of convulsive disorders shortly after birth. One drunken father had 7 still-born children in succession; another lost 8 of 12 by convulsions. It is not alone as a direct result of inebriety that a defective nervous system is thus transmitted. Even in his sober intervals, he whose nervous system has been shattered by alcohol is liable to have a degenerate or diseased offspring. Of 18 children recorded as born under these circumstances, Voisin found 8 epileptic and 10 idiotic. As if to prove beyond the possibility of a doubt that such degeneracy is due to the alcoholism of the parent, and to that alone, two French investigators, Mairet and Combemale, performed a series of experiments on dogs, by which they showed that the same result which the chronic inebriate is accused of producing in his offspring, through selfish indulgence, can be produced at will in the offspring of lower animals by compulsory induction of the same vice in them."