Alcoholic Deaths Show Sharp Rise

New York Evening Post, December 31, 1923:

"Every year since the enforcement of the Volstead act the number of "alcoholic deaths” in New York city caused by alcoholism and alcohol poisoning from “bad liquor,” rose, from 98 in 1920 to 119 in ’21, then 274 in ’22, and 363 by December of 1923. These numbers only counted alcohol as the cause of death when determined by the health department’s chemical analysis but many more died under the care of a doctor who would “hunt a long while for a possible cause of death before he would write “alcoholism” on a death certificate.” . . .

“Of the thousands who died under care of their family physician there is no record.”