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To the Editor.—
We observed that chronic drinkers seemed to have more skin lesions than did nondrinkers. We were unable to find any reference to this association either in the standard dermatology texts or in the medical literature of the past 20 years. Because of this, we decided to do a study to confirm or refute this casual observation.
Patient Population.—
Five hundred consecutive admissions to the medical service at our hospital, which is an active general hospital, were interviewed and examined. The patients were questioned in detail as to their alcohol intake, occupation, and medications. Each patient was then carefully examined as to the presence or absence of any significant skin lesions. A dermatologic diagnosis was made, and most of these patients were then seen by a dermatologist for confirmation of the diagnosis.We decided arbitrarily to call those persons who drank four or more cans or bottles of