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Show ' . j Drunken Pig j GUINEA PICS that have been drunk six days a week for six years are being studied by scientists of , Cornell University Medical college. They get their jag by inhaling in-haling alcohol fumes much more potent than drinking, for the . intoxicant reaches them through their lungs. ' Worse and more of it, these drunken guinea pigs seem not to be injured by heir chronci drunkenness. They are as heavy as prohibition guinea pigs, also as nealthyj" arid live as long. But the ilcohol takes Its toll in the second generation. Few offspring are born to the alcoholics, and f.ie ones that are born are decidedly Inferior to the offspring of abstainers. , The third generation of guinea pigs, born from hard-drinking ancestors, are better .h.i.i the second generation, but not up to normal. The fourth generation, however, puzzle J-h.i ; Barleycorn's enemies. For,-while only the hardy ones live, the survivors are stronger, heavier and more alert than guinea pigs whose ancestors Indulged not in the fiery cup. All this, of course, is a sort of post mortem mor-tem on J. Barleycorn, an attempt by scientists to learn the truth about alcohol's effects in heredity. About 7000 guinea pigs have, to date, been used In the experiments. It's too early In hte game to make definite announcements. announce-ments. But. it begins to look as If the experiments experi-ments show that alcoholism Is' bad for individuals indi-viduals but that it may benefit the Tace by weeding out the unfit eliminating weaklings early in life or preventing their birth altogether. alto-gether. ; i Dr. Charles RTstockard, head of the Cornell Cor-nell guinea pig investigators, says: "Should anyone desire to apply these experimental ex-perimental results to the human alcohol problem, prob-lem, It might be claimed that some such elimination elimi-nation of unfit Individuals has benefited the races of Europe, since all of the dominant races have a definite alcoholic history, and the excessive use of alcohol was decidedly more general three or four generations ago than It is today." J ,' Similarly, it will be at laast three generations genera-tions before the effects of liquor prohibition can be estimated with accuracy. The effect on our generation will be much less than on our descendants. |