Abstract
Stockard and Papanicolaou, Arlitt, Stockard, Hanson, Mac-Dowell 1 have found that alcohol may cause partial or complete sterility in laboratory mammals.
This has been explained both as a result of the elimination of less vigorous germ cells or zygotes, and as an immediate effect of the alcohol upon the activity of the ovary. The present experiments offer a method for analyzing more fully than before the effects of alcohol upon the reproductive processes of a mammal. The following criteria are used here for the first time in a study of this type: (1) the length of the estrus cycle, (2) the number of corpora lutea for given pregnancies, and (3) the proportion of these represented at the subsequent births by living young.
The mice used came from lines that had been inbred for three and four generations by brother to sister mating. Tests and controls from the same litter were kept in the same pen to equalize environmental conditions as far as possible. The alcohol was given by inhalation in pint milk bottles. Before treatment each mouse from one pen was placed in its own bottle; into each test bottle was then inserted a strip of absorbent paper, approximately 37 by 15 cm., wet with 3 cc. commercial (95 per cent) alcohol. The bottle was capped and inverted at once. Into each control bottle was inserted a similar piece of paper without the alcohol; these bottles also were closed, and inverted. Each mouse remained in its bottle for 45 minutes. This treatment, starting at weaning (4 to 5 weeks), was given daily. The controls seemed to be unaffected by confinement in the closed bottles. For the first week the alcohol treatment left most mice flat on their sides; later, when most mice could turn over and run off, their behavior still showed an unquestionable effect of the alcohol.
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