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 often got port "because he was a little nervous." Alarmed by Pierre's case, Psychiatrist Serin alerted Paris' clinics, soon uncovered three more cases of child alcoholism:

P:Lucien, 5, a sickly, insomniac youngster, was so unstable that he could not be left alone. The son of wealthy parents, he drank nothing but undiluted wine, in accordance with his father's decree: "Water propagates infantile paralysis."

P:Yvonne, 3, another wine drinker, refused to get into her bed because it was "full of toads and big fish."

P:Maurice, 12, suffered from a stammer and tic. After drinking nothing but wine and an occasional aperitif since infancy, he was retarded, with hands that shook like the paws of a Skid Row bum.

Certain that Lucien, Yvonne and Maurice were only three of a host of alcoholic French children, Psychiatrist Serin persuaded the Ministry of Public Health to investigate in other areas of France. The results were shocking.

In Normandy, the checkup showed, children from 18 months up drink the local Calvados (homemade applejack) at meals and between meals. In the Vendee, schoolchildren pack a bottle of wine in their lunch baskets; if school is far from home, they take an extra bottle to fortify them for the long trip back. In La Roche-sur-Yon, a three-year-old boy was admitted to a clinic after his family had tried to cure him of worms with dosages of Pernod. In a town near by, a 19-month-old infant died of acute alcoholism.

Throughout France's wine areas, many children take a swig every time the jug is passed. In the Vendee, a local health officer asked a farmer's wife why her two infants were flushed and screaming. Explained the mother placidly: "Last night was the Communion supper. They drank one more Triple Sec than usual."

In Paris last week, Dr. Serin reported the findings to the Academy of Medicine. Its staid members listened with dismay, promptly began to lay plans for a big anti-alcoholism campaign in French schools. It will be a difficult and a delicate job, for, as any French peasant will confidently insist, a little wine never hurt anybody.

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