follow the abolition of it. Experience has taught the lesson to every one capable of understanding. The restoration of the canteen should be effected by Congress at this session."

The reason upon which the doctors base their petition are essentially medical, and they strongly emphasize the relation between "the use of strong alcoholic stimulants and the contraction of venereal diseases." In this respect the present state of our army is deplorable. "The venereal peril," says Surgeon-General Torney, in his latest report, "has come to outweigh in importance any other sanitary question which now confronts the army, and neither our national optimism nor the Anglo-Saxon disposition to ignore a subject which is offensive to public prudery can longer refuse a frank and honest confrontation of the problem." There has been a steady increase in this class of disease, "so that the admission rate, which was 8.46 per cent. in 1897, has now reached the enormous figure of 19.7 per cent." A comparison with the figures of some of the European armies will show how grave the case is:

The Surgeon-General's recommendations include proper instruction concerning the nature of venereal diseases, the formation of temperance associations among the enlisted men and "the organization of soldiers' clubs, canteens, etc., where enlisted men can find amusement and recreation sufficiently attractive to keep them at home and away from vile resorts." It is "the dens of dissipation and disease just beyond the jurisdiction of the commanding officer" that are largely answerable for the existing evil, and it is for this reason that so many distinguished medical men have joined together in urging Congress to re-establish the canteen, "in the interest of temperance; of military order and efficiency; and of the health and happiness of our soldiers and of their future wives and children."

Secretary Stimson, of the War Department, has frankly declared himself in favor of restoring the Army Canteen. Since the Federal Act of 1901, forbidding the sale of beer in the post exchanges,

the enlisted men have been driven by their appetites to the low dives which sprang up like mushrooms round the gateway of every military reservation. There they become the victims not merely of intemperence, but of graver evils, as the percentages of disease cited by Secretary Stimson alarmingly prove. In the decade since the anti-canteen law was passed the percentage of disease in the army has been from 14 to 17; before the Spanish War, when the canteen was permitted and there was no powerful inducement to visit the dives outside the posts, the percentage was from 7 to 8. In the European armies, where it is permissible to use beer and light wine within the reservation, the percentage is sometimes not more than 2 or 3.

The Philadelphia Ledger comments: "Before the 'liberal' attitude is denounced by zealots who think that Mr. Stimson is officially conniving at a crime, let them acquaint themselves with the facts and note the results of the policy which has banished the enlisted man from what was virtually a 'harmless club,' where liquor was sold under stringent surveillance, to vile groggeries where, with no restrictions, the tippler found himself least able to resist the insidious encroachment of accompanying vicious influences."

Like the New York World, the Sun, Globe, Brooklyn Eagle and Brooklyn Times, and many other leading journals, urge the immediate passage of the Bartholdt bill, restoring the post exchange. Says the Rochester Times:

"Unquestionably the intention of the W. C. T. U was to benefit the soldiers by having the canteen abolished. But the unanimous testimony of army officials, physicians and surgeons and soldiers themselves, is that great injury is done the army by the lack of the canteen. In the face of such testimony Congress cannot have any doubt as to which policy is for the benefit of the army."

The New York Herald thus tersely sums up the situation: "The fight against the canteen resulted in an example of maiden lady legislation which has been a prolific source of wrong to American citizens and soldiers alike,' declares the New York Medical Journal, urging the passage of a bill re-establishing that institution.

"With the highest ranking officers in the army, some of them teetotalers, and the medical profession demanding the return of the canteen, Congress should have the moral courage to defy the theorists and do what is right by the soldier."

Major General Wood, U. S. A., in his last annual report, advocates the re-establishment of the canteen.

In connection with the controversy over restoring beer to the army canteen, Dr. W. W. Keen, of Philadelphia, calls attention to the fact that the Rules for the Management of Garrison and Regimental Institutes of the British army provide that at home stations of the army no spirituous liquors of any description can be sold, but that malt liquor may be served in measures no larger than one pint. These are the rules amended up to February, 1912, and Dr. Keen directs attention to them as correcting a published statement that English war authorities had "recently authorized the establishment of canteens without the beer feature.”

DRINK AND DEGENERACY.

Addressing the American Medical Society recently, Dr. Alexander MacNicholl, of New York, presented a gloomy picture of existing conditions in this country and a presage still more gloomy of things to come. He sees "a wave of degeneracy sweeping over the land and threatening the physical vitality of the nation," and he attributes the evil mainly to the use of alcohol.

This is a sweeping statement familiar in the mouths of antialcoholists, and indeed not to be seriously considered, like the Doctor's imputation of wide-spread insanity to the same cause. England and Germany are fair examples of nations which have always been addicted to alcohol and which as yet show little sign of degeneracy.

Dr. MacNicholl also cited statistics collected by himself, covering a small number of families, showing that of abstainers 90 per cent. of the children were normal, as against 7 per cent. of those belonging to alcoholic parents. He declared that the degenerate taint is hereditary and alleged that the tendency passed through three generations of children in ten families of drinking parents. He asserted that since the beginning of the century 1,000,000 babies under two years old have died as the result of the drink habit of their parents.

These statements are completely at variance with the results of an investigation recently made by the Francis Galton Laboratory of Eugenics (London). In the course of this investigation more than three thousand children were examined, of whom about one-half were the offspring of drunken parents. The result of the inquiry

established, in the language of the report, "that the children of alcoholics showed no appreciable inferiority to the children of sober parents in physical development, intellectual growth or sense-perception."

More surprising, the mean (average) weight and height of the children of alcoholics were found to be somewhat greater than those of sober parents, and the general health of the alcoholic group seemed to be a little better than the non-alcoholic. Tuberculosis and epilepsy were less frequent, and there were fewer delicate children. The investigators concluded therefore that alcoholism in the parent has no notable effect on the health of the children. It has been alleged that 40% of idiots and imbeciles owed their condition to alcoholism in one or both of their parents, yet this investigation tends rather to show that alcoholism is not a source of mental defect in the offspring. To sum up: the investigators failed to establish any relation whatever between the drinking habits of parents and the intelligence, physique and health of the children.

Dr. T. B. Hyslop, F.R.S.E., writing in the British Journal of Inebriety, confirms the results of the Galton inquiry from his own observations. He says, with a degree of candor and fairness which the MacNicholls might well emulate to the advantage of scientific truth:

"For a long time past I have in many instances attributed mental and physical defects to parental alcoholism, but I must now confess that, after careful consideration of the data so much discussed by the members of the Eugenics Laboratory-Sir Victor Horsley, Drs. Saleeby, Basil Price, Demme, Bezzola, Laitinen, MacNicholl, and many others—I have endeavored to discard my previous conceptions, and I have sought diligently for an instance of defect which I could honestly convince myself as being due solely and entirely to parental alcoholism. Formerly I regarded epilepsy, some forms of insanity, mental enfeeblement and defective inhibition, deaf-mutism and stunted growth as being mainly due to parental alcoholism. All these conditions, however, fall under the category of defects in what has been aptly termed the 'general controlling determinant,' and I have as the outcome of such clinical experience imagined I could diagnose parental alcoholism from the symptoms evidenced in the offspring. Now I feel that I cannot truly satisfy myself that in any one case there had not been also other factors than alcohol at work, and that the symptoms in the offspring might possibly have been due to the direct inheritance of a neuro-psychosis as well as alcohol."

Dr. T. Claye Shaw, F.R.C.P., practically takes the same position. How, he asks, are the not uncommon instances to be accounted for, when the children of alcoholic parents have no craving at all-are, indeed teetotalers-and yet are no more degenerate than may be the descendants of strictly teetotal ancestors? It would not be surprising if someone were to formulate statistics of the increase of neurasthenia in connection with the increase of tea-drinking and its effect upon the offspring, especially as it is practically certain that, the consumption of alcohol having materially fallen off, some reason must apparently be found to account for things as they exist The truth is, continues the Doctor, that occasions arise when we want quickly-acting remedies. Alcohol is at one time necessary; at another, a hot fluid drink, such as tea or coffee, is indicated. The pity is that these agents are often taken to excess, and then evils of habit and environment come in, and doubtless affect the offspring. If there had been no excess in taking alcohol, the question of these conflicting statistics would never have cropped up; but the zealots who see evil even in moderation ought to be careful lest, in overstating their case, they bias people against accepting their statements about the evils that are undoubtedly caused by excess or anything beyond the most moderate consumption—and this applies to everything, but especially to alcohol, tobacco, tea, and also to overeating.

ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE UNDER FIRE.

Eugene W. Chapin, Prohibition candidate for President in the last election, recently denounced the Anti-Saloon League in Portland, Ore. He sketched the growth of the temperance movement from its inception in 1840, when the first temperance wave swept over the country, and described the different "sidetracks" that had been made in the years which have elapsed. The latest of these "sidetracks," he declared, was the Anti-Saloon League, which was "organized simply to keep temperance men in the Republican party." It had, he said, since 1892, taken $15,000,000 away from the churches and “fooled it away on local option."

The troubles of the League are affording no end of matter for discussion in the newspapers. Says the Sandusky (Ohio) Register:

"In Maryland a few days ago dissatisfaction over the League's management in that State broke out following the publication of its financial report which showed that out of $37,000 spent, over