Helping Hands

PROFESSOR JACKSON A. SMITH, a member of the faculty of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in Omaha, advising industry on how to deal with alcoholic patients, states in the technical journal, Industrial Medicine and Surgery: "In essence, any individual who relies on alcohol to meet the ordinary demands of living and continues to drink excessively after alcohol has caused his occupational or marital difficulties, is an alcoholic whether he drinks only in the evening, has never taken a drink alone, or hasn't touched anything but beer for five years." His advice boiled down to the humble admission that science did not know the answers concerning either the causes or the cure of alcoholism. He pooh-poohed a number of scientific theories, including the glandular theory, vitamin imbalance theory, and even the psychiatric theory of reversion to the "oral" stage of the sucking, dependent babe.