Subscribers may be interested in two articles I encountered
recently on different, but possibly related, topics.
        Jeffrey A. Miron and Jeffrey Zwiebel, "Alcohol Consumption During
Prohibition," AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW 81 (1991): 242-47 is a report of an
econometric study attempting to estimate per capita alcohol consumption
during U.S. National Prohibition using a different version of the
estimating technique first employed by Clark Warburton, THE ECONOMIC
RESULTS OF PROHIBITION (1932).  The technique is to estimate consumption
from series measuring the death rate from cirrhosis of the liver, the
death rate from alcoholism, the number of patients per capita admitted to
hospitals for the first time with alcoholic psychosis, and the rate of
drunkenness arrests.  Most series are for the period 1900-1950, and are
strongly correlated with standard estimates of per capita alcohol
consumption for the non-Prohibition years.  Miron and Zwiebel's estimates
essentially confirm Warburton's estimates showing consumption falling
sharply during the first years of Prohibition to about 30 percent of its
pre-Prohibition level, then rising during the late 1920s to about 60-70
percent of the pre-Prohibition level.
        Warren S. Walker, "Lost Liquor Lore: The Blue Flame of
Intemperance," JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE 16 (Fall 1982): 17-25 is a
survey of ideas and images of spontaneous combustion of heavy drinkers in
British and American literature.  Something to keep in mind as the
holidays approach . . . .
 
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Jack Blocker
History, Huron College, University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario N6G 1H3 Canada
(519) 438-7224, ext. 249 /Fax (519) 438-3938