=The possible racial influence of narcotics.=--Alcohol is of course a narcotic poison, or, more precisely still, a narcotic-irritant poison, but here we may briefly refer to the possible racial influence of certain other poisons. There is, for instance, the case, noted on p. 212, of the disastrous racial consequences of the cocaine habit. The matter demands only a paragraph, since for the present, at least, it is of small general importance, and since we must beware of going beyond the facts; but when once the idea of race-culture has reached the popular and professional mind--the latter at present frequently feeding the pregnant woman with alcohol, as we all know--the whole question of narcomania will have to be looked at from this aspect, and the measure of danger in particular cases will then be ascertained. It is probably safe to assume, however, that, on the whole, alcohol will be found to stand somewhat apart from other narcotics, and for the reason that it is not a pure narcotic but also an irritant. Thus, to take the case of opium, it will probably be very difficult and, one may hope, impossible to show that, shall we say, opium smoking or eating has an injurious racial influence where it is practised. Here we have a narcotic which is not an irritant. The individual may recover perfectly from its abuse, as he may often fail to recover from the abuse of alcohol, since this poison leaves permanent changes in the brain, and elsewhere, dependent upon the fact that it is not merely a narcotic but also a local irritant. The action of a pure narcotic on the germ-plasm as compared with the action of a narcotic which is also an irritant may afford a parallel. The abuse of opium by the expectant mother (see p. 212) is not of the same order: it means simply dosing a _very_ small baby with opium. =Tobacco and the race.=--The poisonous compounds absorbed from tobacco smoke are of interest in this connection. The question as to the proportion of nicotine included amongst them is immaterial here. It suffices to know, as we do, that certain substances, doubtless including some proportion of nicotine, rapidly absorbed into the blood by the smoker, are poisons to the individual body. The familiar fact of the acquirement of immunity affects in no degree the statement as to the toxic character of these substances. No one but the fanatic would venture to say that any racial degeneration can be traced to tobacco-smoking. It would be hard to prove the existence of any injury thus inflicted upon the children of the father who is a smoker, though the question of the acquirement of immunity is not without relevance here. The immunising substances or anti-toxins which are doubtless produced in the smoker's blood may protect the germ-plasm which he bears as well as his own body.