The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-05-09

poster on when Ssausucian o"-
ments In his letter in your issue OF the
srd inst Is one of series which m
tended to present. in sach WAY as TO
attract the attention OF the passer-ey.
Information In regard To the enects er
alcohol. The clock and pendulum are
accessory to the statement cei"w as 70
the number OF deaths IN each year IN
the United states OF which drink Is Sne
cause. II this statement IL true II Is
n matter OF arithmetic that one occurs
every eight minutes
On each Of the posters reference Is
made TO the authority for the statement
which II contains. III the writer mao
read the poster little more carefohS
he would have seen that this statement
Ii based on Phelps estimates IN MOT
tality Of Alcohol" published In ISL. ana
by referring 60 this would have avoided
some errors In the assumption ne makes
that all deaths from Brishts disease
and acute nephritis have been included
In the number. Since he has taken no
much trouble. I desire to state ertenS
how the results was arrived at. and In
doing % I. shall refer TO the paper by
Mr. Phelps, who is editor OF the Ameri-
can Underwater of New York CITY.
which was read before the lnterna-
tional Congress on Hygiene and Demo-
graphy here on September g. 1872 II
win be found on p SD n. Of Vol. I. Of
the Transactions. This 10 \ re-state-
ment Of the method and the conclusions
q year after the book was published.
Mr.. Phelps was prompted to under
take the Investigation because he Oh
1ected to the statement made by Repre-
sentative Hobson In Congress In 1911
that 'over $4,000 deaths per year In con-
tinentai United States" are due to alco-
hoi. and desired to dnd out how many
deaths in this country IN each year
were presumably due to alcohol He
found that, although there had been
some Investigations in Europe. there
1t was evident that II would be dim
cult to obtain reliable data from medical
associations or societies. from hospitals,
or even from genrai medical practitioners.
but II occurred to him that the medi-
cal directors Of the great life insurance
companies would be the best authorities
on the subject because they have been
Obliged for years to pass on many thou
sands Of applications for life Insurance.
In which the question OF mans use
Of alcohol plays an important part a. to
their acceptance or rejection. On sub
hitting the suggestion to the medical
director Of the largest life insurance COM
pany in the United States. who had been
identified with 1t for more than twenty
years, the medical director approved OF
the plan and promised his hearty CO.
operation.
The latest figures available at that time
were the mortality statistics Of the Cen.
sus Bureau for 1905. IN which III causes
ana classes OF causes OF deaths were
listed. AZ the preliminary investigator
was to be restricted to male deaths OF
adult ages. eishty-one OF these causes
or clauses OF causes were stricken out
rs not coming within the scope Of the
Investigation, and only the deaths be-
tween the ages Of % to "a inclusive were
considered, because It was thought that
the influence Of alcohol on deaths at
IS and later was negligible. Two other
medical directors Of large companies. who
made up q representative, group OF three.