ABSTRACT
All too often the medical experts and the psychiatric teams have functioned separately making it difficult to tackle the alcoholic as a whole. Mindful of this a joint medical and psychiatric clinic for alcoholics was set up a little over a year ago in a district general hospital. With regard to our third aim, despite the fact that the people are seeing an early sample of alcoholics, evidence of physical injury was frequently found. The histological profile resembles the findings in randomly selected alcoholic patients admitted to a large municipal hospital in the United States because of withdrawal symptoms or intercurrent illness. The absorption of orally administered S-thiamine hydrochloride is often however markedly reduced in the malnourished alcoholic or by the presence of circulating ethanol. A trial on the combined effects on the psychological and physical aspects of treatment is in progress.
