Questions of the Day and of the Fray number 3: Pearson, Karl. 1911. An Attempt to Correct Some of the Misstatements made by Sir Victor Horsley, FRS, FRCS, and Mary D. Sturge, MD, in their Criticisms of the Galton Laboratory Memoir: ‘A First Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism, etc.’ (London: Dulau and Co.). 42 pp.
Summary
This publication is a detailed attempt to correct widespread misstatements and misunderstandings resulting from the criticisms lodged by Sir Victor Horsley and Dr. Mary D. Sturge regarding the Laboratory’s foundational memoir on parental alcoholism.
Pearson vigorously defends the original memoir’s limited scope, which focused solely on the effect of parental alcoholism on the offspring as children. He argues that the critics incorrectly insisted the study should have traced effects beyond school age. He also defends the definitions used for ‘sober’ (not total abstinence, but moderate use that does not harm the home or individual’s health) and ‘alcoholism’ (drinking more than is beneficial, not necessarily “chronic alcoholism”).
A major point of contention Pearson refutes is the critics’ assertion that the Laboratory claimed alcoholism causes “no appreciable detriment to the drunkard or his children”. Pearson clarifies that the memoir did find a higher death-rate among children of drinking parents (33–36 per cent.) compared to sober parents (25–28 per cent.). However, this excess mortality was attributed primarily to the differential home environment, including carelessness, accidents, overlaying, and burns, and only in a minor degree to toxic effects. Pearson demonstrates that critics used vague and inaccurate police statistics to dispute the role of negligence.
Furthermore, Pearson defends the wage data, which was used not as a measure of the current efficiency of the drinker, but as an indirect measure to ascertain whether the drinking parents belonged to an inferior stock ab initio. The finding that the wages of the alcoholic were only slightly less (1s. 1d. less on average) was used to argue that they were not initially inferior in physique or mentality to the sober population.
Ultimately, Pearson maintains that the toxic action of alcohol has been grossly exaggerated for propaganda. He concludes by emphasizing the growing view among scientific medical schools that alcohol abuse is often a product of a diseased mental condition (such as epilepsy or melancholic mania) and not the primary cause of degeneracy.
Questions of the Day and of the Fray number 3
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