Repeal Boosts Alcoholic Mental Cases

White Ribbon, Volume 18, Issue 5, 1 June 1946, Page 7

Repeal Boosts Alcoholic Mental Cases

II It is a i act long accented and test>H; (o I>y authorities in the tieht of ills that alcohol is a never but rather a steadily increasing ;t' shown by the official records. 11 ()ne "i the most significant surveys H, thi" regard was that recently denied in an interview with Mrs. I). Heigh Colvin, President of the National I',C.T.U. I I Briefly, the survey finds that yearly Him admissions cf alcoholics, as such, Huth and without psychosis, to mental Q stitution- in the United States more ■ban tripled, and the number of women Ho confined increased 44 times, in the Hi years beginning in 1922, “peak year Hi prohibition enforcement,” and endHng in 1942, latest year in which Htaiistics are available. I I With the exception of 1922, alcoHolics are shown consistently by the ■census bureau to be the largest group ■among those classed without psychosis ■admitted to mental institutions. In ■1922, mental deficients were listed first, ■and alcoholics second.

I Alcoholism is additionally the sixth ■leading cause of confinement in the Igroups listed as with psychosis. In ■ this position, it ranks next in number ■of cases to dementia praecox, cerebral ■ arteriosclerosis, manic-depressive, senlile and general paresis. No census bureau reports on mental ■ confinement were issued from 1923 I through 1925. Those from 1926 to 1 1933. last year of general prohibition, I show only confinements to state hosI pitals. which, however, in 1922 received I about 73.1 per cent, of first admissions Ito all institutions. In state hospitals, I the number of alcoholics did not reach 4.000 per year until 1931, when lawenforcement became notoriously indifferent and lax. It is pointed out that the census reports do not show- the total alcoholic inmates, as distinguished from admissions, in mental institutions, year by year The resident alcoholics in all asylums is shown at the year-end, 1939, to have been 13,555, including 11,536 [nen and 1,960 women, with the sex of '9 patients unstated.

Commenting upon the relationship of mental cases among women to the alcohol factor. Mrs. Colvin said: “Midfortits appear to he the most dangerous ages, alcoholically, for men, and early forties for women. Median for first admissions with psychosis m was 45 for men and 41.5 for women, and in cases without phychoMs . he Foundation’ says (Oct., 1945), 43.1 for men and 40 for women.”