Recent trends in alcoholism and in alcohol consumption [CAAAL 3898]

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Abstract
In the past few years newspapers and popular magazines have published surmises about an increase in drinking and a rise of alcoholism, particularly among women. The question has also been raised whether or not alcoholism has tended lately to develop at earlier ages. These surmises have been based either on impressions or on naïve statistics or on the free interpretation of scattered statements in professional journals. Extravagant conclusions have been attached to observations made on highly specific and small units, such as small hospitals or individual municipal courts which deal with selected populations.Thus Rotman’s† finding that the male–female ratio of inebriates had dropped from 4.5:1 in 1931 to 2:1 in 1943 at the Psychiatric Institute of the Municipal Court of Chicago has been generalized by the daily press as valid for the entire country. Such a conclusion was not intended by Rotman, who pointed out that “In fairness it must be noted that this represents a sex ratio in only extremely pathologica...
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