Medicine: The Wine Drinkers

A prosperous French couple brought their seven-year-old son Pierre to the Paris office of plump, greying Child Psychiatrist Suzanne Serin, 56. Pierre, they told Dr. Serin, was a bright, healthy boy, but he often flew into inexplicable rages. Pierre himself told Dr. Serin that he often had strange visions: "Wings, not hands, white things which dance on the bureau . . . It is awful." Despite 26 years of practice, Dr. Serin was scarcely able to believe her own diagnosis: acute alcoholism.

She questioned Pierre's parents, learned that the boy drank a liter (1.0567 qts.) of wine each day, and at night...