BLOOD TESTS FOR INTOXICATION

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27277, 18 February 1954, Page 3

BLOOD TESTS FOR INTOXICATION

OPINIONS OF EXPERT

WITNESSES

EVIDENCE GIVEN IN SUPREME COURT

r Opinions on the value of a blood r test to determine intoxication were expressed, and authorities on the siibject were quoted, by medical witnesses 1 in a civil case heard in the Supreme I Court yesterday, in which a plaintff . claiming damages alleged that an accib dent was caused by the driver of a • car being intoxicated, the alcohol content of his blood being .32 per cent. ■ and of his urine .39 per cent. Charles Graham Riley, a physician, said there seemed to be an increasing ’ body of medical opinion on the con- ; centration of aldohol in the blood as • an estimation of intoxication. Authorities, from which he quoted, gave the minimum concentration of alcohol in , the blood at which a driver’s judgment was likely to be affected as .05 per cent. The authorities said that all drivers would be affected at .15 : per cent, alcohol in the blood. At a level of .25 per cent, of alcohol in the kl° od .100 per cent, of persons , would be intoxicated on examination if alive. At a level of .2 per cent, there would be mild or moderate intoxication; at .3 per cent, there would be marked intoxication; and at a level of .5 per cent, to .8 per cent the person would be within the fatal zone, lhe authorities empasised that there were individual variations in the reacuon to alcohol concentration in the blood, but this applied particularly to the lesser concentrations. . Q ue stion of the efficacy of blood tests for intoxication was still a matter of controversy in England, said Dr. Riley. All the authorities he had quoted were Canadian and American. A given amount of alcohol would produce different results in different individuals. The feeling among medical \ n A ew Zealand .was that the blood test for alcohol was of value. He was aware of the American authorities quoted and of the English viewpoint on the alcohol content of the blood as a test of intoxication, and he would like to put before the Court a considered opinion more in line with British practice than with American or foreign views, said David McKee Dickson, a surgeon. The blood alcohol was a far and away , better indication of the amount of alcohol consumed than of intoxiiTt if- l hat diffcren <:e in the individual which has prevented British jurists and this country, too, from accepting the American opinion that a certain alcohol level in the blood means so and so,” he said The effect of alcohol was influenced S».? a ” y r fec J ors - n depended on drugs, climate, altitude, addiction fever, and foods, notably fat and p?o--tem. A large amount of food caused a far slower absorption of alcohol So lXe7nV W i r l th , er . tha t the blood level of alcohol indicated the amount Sf alcohol a man had drunk rather level intoXlCatlon ' except at the higher

“No Hard and Fast Rule” whiX aS r?? ac ? e P ted that Boz of Si»X ky lar E e whiskys) or four pints of beer taken on an empty stomach produced a blood level of th a n Pe it,u Ont ( ’ il nd at tt at level more IS?? half of those people would be ?o?, XlCa I te d', w hen it came to the higher levels, say .3 per cent., there was a corresponding increase in the amount of alcohol taken, and that figure would mean probably 100 per cent, intoxication. There were no hard and fast rules on blood level but it was far more important at the higher levels than at the lower levels The controversy about blood tests for alcohol as an indication of intoxication was not so much on the higher blood levels. It was on the lower blood levels.

If it was shown that the blood level of a car driver, who had been killed, was .32 per cent., the witness would say that the man had obviously drunk an excessive amount of liquor and he was probably intoxicated. “I would say he was not fit to be in control of a vehicle, having regard to the ‘no hard and fast rule’ I put on it before. That is a level that is really outside the balance,” said Dr. Dickson. .Thomas Bushby Pearson, a pathologist, said that, on his reading of the authorities, if tests showed that the alcoholic content of a man’s blood was .32 per cent. And of his urine .39 per cent, the man must have been intoxicated.

The authorities on the subject were agreed that all the people with the same concentration of alcohol in the blood were in, roughly, the same state of intoxication, said Norman Patrick Alcorn, Government analyst in Christchurch. This applied at all levels, but the boundary line before a person was considered to be intoxicated was different in different countries. In Britain, where a more conservative view was taken, this might be .25 per cent. < Ih Germany and Scandinavia it was .18 per cent, to .2 per cent. In Canada and the United States .15 per cent, was commonly accepted as the border line of intoxication. In many of the states a driver with a higher concentration than .15 per cent .of alcohol in the blood was regarded as intoxicated.