Blood Alcohol Levels in Hospitalized Victims of Traffic Accidents

One phase of the action of alcohol in our modern society is its possible role as a causative agent in traffic accidents. This problem may be a t­ tacked by ascertaining the presence or absence of alcohol in the breath, blood or other body fluids after traffic ^accidents, and by establishing w hether the incidence of cases with alcohol present is higher than the incidence of individuals with alcohol in non­ accident cases. One of the earliest studies performed to approach this problem was carried out by Hindmarsh and Linde (1934). They determined the blood alcohol level in all traffic accidents hos­ pitalized at a city hospital in Stock­ holm, Sweden,, during the period April 1, 1932 to March 31, 1933. They found that 44% of the hospitalized traffic accidents (i.e. 50 out of 113) had taken alcohol previous to the accident and showed a positive find­ ing of blood alcohol level, and that tw o-thirds of this group (33 out of 50) had a blood alcohol level of 0.1 per cent or more. Almost identical figures were estab­ lished by Heise (1938), who deter­ mined breath alcohol by means of the Harger Drunkometer and found that among 270 drivers hospitalized in Evanston, Illinois, during the period 1935-1938, 46.6% had alcohol in their blood and that 13.6% showed a blood alcohol level of 0.15 per cent or higher (Holcomb 1938). By comparison with the incidence of cases with positive tests for breath alcohol in non-acci­ dent drivers Holcomb (1938), showed the greatly increased risk for a driver having taken alcohol to run into an accident involving hospitalization. At a blood alcohol level of 0.15 per cent or higher the risk was 55 times as high as that of a non-drinking driver (Holcomb 1938). Recently two groups of research workers in Toronto, H. Ward Smith and Robert E. Popham in 1951, and G. H. W. Lucas, W. ' Kalow, B. A. Griffith and H. Ward Smith in 1953, by establishing the incidence of alco­ hol in accident drivers were able to show the role of alcohol in causing traffic accidents. H. Ward Smith and Robert E. Popham compared the inci­ dence of accidents with alcohol in two groups of drivers viz., those where the “human factor” was re ­ sponsible for “0-20%” of the acci­ dent, and those where the human factor was responsible for “80-100%” of the accident. G. H. W. Lucas and associates compared the incidence of