170 RAYMOND PEARL 



pared. (4) There is no control on the question of whether the 

 drinking habits of the insured changed during the hfe of the 

 pohcy. I am informed by competent actuarial experts that 

 they regard the problem of the effect of the moderate use of 

 alcohol (corresponding to the dosages employed in the present 

 investigation) upon human longevity as still an absolutely open 

 question. 



In this same connection the statements of Heron (10) regard- 

 ing the death rate among extreme alcoholists is of interest. He 

 made a very thorough and critical investigation of the mortality 

 and morbidity of female inebriates, committed under the Ine- 

 briates Act between January 1, 1907, and December 31, 1909, 

 to the inebriate reformatories in England. He first shows in 

 detail what must be evident on general grounds, that any person 

 to come under the operations of the act and be committed to a 

 reformatory must be chronically, extremely, and, as the event 

 shows, practically incurably addicted to the regular and excessive 

 use of alcohol. They represent the upper hmit of chronic alco- 

 holism. In regard to morbidity he finds (p. 17) that 77 per 

 cent of these maximally alcoholic persons ''are free from definite 

 organic disease." Regarding mortaUty he finds (p. 22) 



that the death-rate from all causes among inebriates while under sen- 

 tence is only half that of the total female population of England and 

 Wales and is less than a fourth of the death-rate of the class from 

 which they are drawn, if the assumptions made in arriving at the 

 death-rate among this class be accepted; the death-rate among inebri- 

 ates from cancer is slightly less and from phthisis is decidedly less 

 than in this class. The lower death-rate from phthisis is possibly due, 

 to some extent at least, to selection before admission and close medical 

 supervision after admission to the Reformatories. 



The official German statistics show in general a smaller death 

 rate from tuberculosis among alcoholists than among abstainers. 

 This result, which is similar to that obtained by Elderton and 

 Pearson (7), is attributed by Pearson (31, p. 16) to selection, 

 in the manner that individuals of better physical constitution 

 are more likely to be drinkers. Such a factor as this would, of 

 course, not come into consideration in the experiments with 

 fowls at all. 



