Alcohol and Antenatal Child Welfare.*

THE: effect of alcohol is a subject whose discussion can scarcely be contained within scientific boundaries ; it has a disconcerting tendency to flow over into the fields of morals and religion.In debates on this matter it is easy to see anticipations, prepossessions, and preconceptions all playing their part and leading not seldom to the entrance of prejudice into the argument.This is in a sense regrettable, and it is always a pity when the odium medicurn, which is bitter enough, has added to it the odium theologicurn, "that degree of rancour, the most furious and implacable"; it would be preferable could the subject be discussed in the cold, clear air of pure science, far removed from emotionalism and unhampered by ethical limitations and religious exhortations, So some would say.Yet I have no strong assurance.I have, I trust, as robust a desire as anyone to see the truth of the matter brought to light in the coldest of all possible scientific atmospheres ; but it does not seem to me to be practicable, even if it were desirable, to keep this question of alcohol separate entirely from morals and religion, from ethics and the evangel.These aspects ought not to be obscured, they cannot logically be shut out; they are factors in the immediate results seen in society and in the ultimate success of treatment, whether curative or preventive.