ALCOHOLISM IN AMERICA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3381, 4 July 1927, Page 8

ALCOHOLISM IN AMERICA.

The alarming increase in deaths from alcoholism in the United States in the ' last five years, despite national prohibition, was to be considered at the national meeting of State and Territorial Boards of Health, to be held this month under the auspices of the United States Public Health Service (according to a message sent recently to the London “Daily Telegraph” by the Washing--, ton correspondent of'that journal). Dr Matthias Nicoll, New York State health commissioner, is convinced, he said, “that the steadily mounting mortality from alcoholism to nearly the pre-prohibition level, and in some States to a higher level, presents to health authorities one of their gravest problems. To poisonous ‘bootleg’ liquor, which may or may not contain poisonous alcohol, Dr Nieoll attributes the extraordinary rise in the alcoholism death rate. In Michigan, Minnesota, and Massachusetts it is now four times the rate of 1920,- in New York five times greater. In six years the rate has doubled in Florida, Maine, and "V ermout. In Kentucky it is six times, and in Maryland 10 times greater. In the 41 States composing the United States registration area the death rate from alcoholism has quadrupled since 1920. In some States the latest available figures are for 1923. In that year California trebled and Montana doubled its 1920 rate. In Colorado the rate was five times, in Washington one and a-half times greater. Mortality from alcoholism had been declining for five years before prohibition came into effect. In the registration area it has now gone up almost to the 1915 level, while in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Michigan the present rate exceeds that of 1915, and in Kentucky it is again the same as a decade ago.

"The fact that thousands of people throughout the country arc dying front' alcohol, good, bad, and indifferent, deplorable and humiliating as it is to health officials and the nation at large, is not nearly so important as the alarming increase in the death rate from this cause, year by year,” declares Dr Nicoll. "The death rate since 1926, almost without exception, has increased in the various States. Deaths from automobile accidents show an alarming increase year after year, notwithstanding increased traffic regulations and severe penalties for their infraction. There can be no question that alcoholism has a very direct bearing in this matter. lam quite certain that a chart showing automobile deaths since 1920 would closely parallel that of alcoholic deaths.”