Dr. Sullivan's enquiries show a very high rate of still-births and abortions amongst the children of drunken mothers--quite sufficient to prove that “the detrimental effect of maternal alcoholism must be in a large measure due to a direct influence on the germ-cells and on the developing embryo, and cannot be explained as merely a result of the neglect and malnutrition from which the children of a drunken mother are naturally apt to suffer.” The point is of some theoretical importance. Practically it matters little; _in either case the drunken woman must not become a mother_. The same conclusion is reached even though we accord unlimited weight to the unquestionably valid argument that the drunkard is himself or herself usually degenerate from the first, and that the children are therefore degenerate, and would indeed be degenerate even if the parents had taken no alcohol. Let us, then, erroneously enough, but for the sake of the argument, assume that solely and always alcoholism is a symptom of degeneracy. It is, then, an indication of unfitness for parenthood no less, and the practical issue is the same: one radical cure for alcoholism, at any rate, is the prohibition of parenthood on the part of the alcoholic.[64] =The most recent evidence.=--The most thorough and comprehensive enquiry into this matter yet made is also the most recent. We owe it to Dr. W. A. Potts, of the University of Birmingham, who did valuable work as Medical Investigator to the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded. His paper, entitled “The Relation of Alcohol to Feeble-mindedness,” is printed in the _British Journal of Inebriety_ for January, 1909, together with communications from many authorities. It is quite impossible to summarise here the enormous mass of evidence which Dr. Potts has accumulated from the literature of the subject, and to which he has added his own work. I believe that nothing could be more moderate and assured than the following conclusions, to which he commits himself after a study of the subject the quality and range of which can only be appreciated at first hand:-- “... the evidence is not clear that alcoholism, by itself, in the father will produce amentia; but it is quite plain that in combination with other bad factors it is a most unfavourable element, while maternal drinking, and drinking continued through more than one generation, are potent influences in mental degeneracy.”