Ron Roizen, "Women Alcoholics at Bellevue, 1918-1919,"
                Science 274:1450-1451, 1996.

                Letter:

                Women Alcoholics at Bellevue,
                1918-1919

                Data published in Science's pages in a 1936
                article about historical trends in alcoholism
                admissions at Bellevue Hospital in New York
                City are probably mistaken. The question-
                able data occur in a paper authored by alco-
                holism, vitamin, and cholesterol researcher
                Norman Jolliffe (1901-1961) ["The alcohol-
                ic admissions to Bellevue Hospital" 83, 306
                (1936)].

                    Jolliffe's paper reported a generally
                downward trend in the proportion of female
                (to male) Bellevue alcoholism admissions
                from 1902 to 1933--the latter, national
                prohibition's final year.  The trend was
                punctuated however by a sudden spike in
                1918 and 1919, when the proportion of
                female admissions virtually doubled to
                41.8% and 39.5%, respectively. Jolliffe of-
                fered two guesses for the occurrence.  First, it
                might have been "due in part to an increase
                of social drinking occasioned by entertain-
                ing soldiers embarking for and returning
                from overseas."  Second, the unhappiness
                caused by the war-time absence of men
                turned more women to drink.  Jolliffe clev-
                erly deduced that the absence of men, and
                not worry about men's safety in combat,
                explained the rise, incidentally, by noting
                that female admissions were almost as large
                in 1919 as in 1918, even though hostilities
                had ceased by the latter year.

                    In 1990, I exchanged correspondence
                with the late Mark Keller, longtime editor of
                the Journal of Studies on Alcohol, who worked
                as Jolliffe's editorial and research assistant in
                the 1930s.  Keller noted that a mixup had
                occurred in the collection of data for Jolliffe's
                Bellevue admissions paper.  He explained
                that both of Jolliffe's hypotheses for the fe-
                male admissions spike were moot because
                the increase in the proportion of female ad-
                missions never actually happened. A change
                in admissions-recording practices, he ex-
                plained, was the source of the apparent spike.

                The previous [pre-19181 and later [post-19191
                statistics were filed by the famous Dr. Menas
                Sarcos Gregory.  During the war he went into
                Government service.  The, deputy who substi-
                tuted for him...did something different from
                Gregory.  He filed "all" the: alcoholic admis-
                sions in the entire Bellevue Hospital, whereas
                Gregory used to file only the Alcoholic Ward
                admissions, in the old days, and the Psychiatric
                Division admissions since it got its new build-
                ing.  This obviously accounted for the seeming
                increase of female admissions in those two
                years; for apparently there was a policy of ad-
                mitting most drunken women to the general
                medical wards rather than to the 'alcoholic
                ward' in Psycho.  Likely, too, that in the old
                Alcoholic Ward (pre-1930s) there wasn't much
                room for women.--This error in the 1936 Sci-
                ence paper had never been corrected.

                Keller's statement implies that more than
                the spike was awry in Jolliffe's admissions
                trend-lines.  If the female admissions were
                underreported in years before and after 1918
                and 1919, then both female admissions and,
                by extension, total admissions' trends report-
                ed in Jolliffe's paper are likely problematic.

                    Keller noted that he had intended on
                more than one occasion to write Science
                about the matter, to illustrate, he said, the
                "vagaries of hypothesizing," but he appar-
                ently never got around to it.

                    The data offered in Jolliffe's 60-year-old
                paper retain more than merely archaic inter-
                est. Figures relating to alcoholism admissions
                and alcohol consumption during national
                prohibition are used and of interest to, for
                example, both sides in the current national
                debate over drug decriminalization. (see, for
                example, E. A. Nadelmann, Letters, 1 Dec.
                1989, P. 1104)

                    I hope and trust that Keller and the good
                Dr. Jolliffe would have been relieved and
                pleased to see this little matter finally
                cleared up!



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