Alcohol and the safety of the unborn child.

ACCORDING TO the leading authority in the United States and probably the world, chronic maternal alcoholism is responsible for one-third of all cases of mental deficiency. On the other hand in Great Britain it has been stated that it is not seen by obstetricians and there are only rare accounts of obser vation of the condition by pediatricians. In this paper an attempt is made to analyse the social, political and scientific factors which have made such a discrepancy between conditions in the two countries apparently possible.