Psychological Effects of Alcohol 1

Abstract

THE literature on the alcohol question is already vast, but it promises to be bigger still if the ambitious programme of Prof. F. G. Benedict and his colleagues is accomplished to the full. It must be more than thirty years ago that, feeling the tyrannv of the ultra-teetotal party in America, the late Prof. Atwater founded a famous committee with the object of freeing, at any rate, the scientific section of the community from the limitations of opinion and research on the question which the so-called temperance party sought to impose upon them. Excellent work they did, but in the intervening years the methods of research have been so improved that the work of that committee urgently needed revision. So in January, 1913, Prof. Benedict invited the co-operation of physiologists throughout the world to share in a gigantic investigation of the numerous problems presented by the dietetic use of alcoholic beverages, and obtained sympathetic answers from a large number of eminent people in all countries. In the present volume a long list is given of these, and grateful acknowledgment is made of friendly, helpful letters from the majority of them.