as a cause at the beginning, there is no way of determining how long it continued to act. Hence, from this point on, the experiment becomes mainly a history of disease. Practically it is an equation in which we do not know whether there are one or two unknown quantities, hence absolutely unamenable to solution.
In Fig. 3 is graphically expressed the relations of growth for the four kittens above described, and also for several other normal kittens of about the same ages that I happened to have at the time. It is seen that the alcoholic-diseased animals are dwarfed in growth to sixty-three per cent and thirty-nine per cent respectively as compared with their normal controls (see also Fig. 4). Some might be inclined to find in this evidence of the "stunting" influence of alcohol when given to growing animals which Bevan Lewis[1] alludes to as "a well-known fact." This I was
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| Fig. 5.—Alcohol-diseased kittens, 1 and 3, June 4, 1895: characteristic attitude. When the photograph was taken, 5 p. m., all the normal kittens were playing actively. |
strongly inclined to do at first, but we are not warranted in doing so from the evidence in hand. In the autumn one of my normal kittens (not one of the four) contracted catarrh, and her growth was interrupted for a time in a similar way. Hence we are obliged to leave this important point entirely in abeyance for the present.
On the side of their psychological development the falling out of purring and play are matters of the most serious import. Soon after beginning alcohol my notes abound in such expressions as the following: "1 and 3 dosing, 2, 4, 0 (another kitten), all playing actively" (see Fig. 5). Along with this all the instincts characteristic of healthy kittens, care of coat, cleanliness, etc., were almost wholly annulled. Fear of dogs, hunting and game instincts, were completely lost. This psychic collapse, developing so suddenly as it did, would seem to be directly attributable to the influence of alcohol. At any rate, nothing of the sort approaching it in either kind or degree was manifested in the normal kittens during any of their periods of disease. It will be wise to bear these points in mind until further confirmation and further analysis of the experiment with kittens are possible. Among the animals thus far experimented with the cat seems to be by far the most sensitive to the influence of alcohol.
- ↑ W. Bevan Lewis. A Text-Book of Mental Diseases. London, 1889, p. 306.
