Those of you who remember a story called "Drug for Drunks" in TIME'S Medicine section of the December 6 issue may be interested to know how we got it and what happened after we ran it.

The story told about the accidental discovery of the effect that a drug named antabus has had in arousing a loathing for alcohol in almost everybody who has taken it. According to Copenhagen's Dr. Erik Jacobsen, who discovered the drug's anti-alcoholic potentialities, TIME was the first U.S. publication to print the story.

TIME Inc.'s Copenhagen stringman, Kai Schou, first heard of antabus at a lecture at Copenhagen's medical association. There Dr. Oluf Martensen-Larsen, a specialist in the treatment of alcoholism, told publicly for the first time about the results his clinic had been getting from the drug. He had volunteered to try it on his patients after Dr. Jacobsen had finished experimenting with it in his laboratory.

Reporter Schou got in touch with Dr. Jacobsen and followed the story as it developed over the succeeding months. Danish medical periodicals reported on various aspects of it, but not until the interim review of the first 500 patients to be treated with antabus was published in November did Schou consider the story solid. He submitted it to TIME'S Medicine editor, and it was published.

As soon as the U.S. and the four overseas editions of the December 6 issue had been distributed across the world, Dr. Jacobsen began hearing from TIME'S readers and their friends --by cable, airmail, telephone and letter in seven languages. Most of the communications were addressed merely to "Doctor Jacobsen, Copenhagen," leaving it up to the post office to find him.* Last week Dr. Jacobsen's elderly male secretary was so overworked answering the mail that he collapsed.

The phraseology of most of the letters is identical, saying: "My husband [father, son, brother, nephew, friend, etc.] is a good man but a habitual alcoholic. Please send the drug mentioned in TIME. I enclose a check for . . ." or "send antabus whatever it costs." In undertaking to answer each communication, Dr. Jacobsen has told all of the senders--except physicians and commercial firms--to have their doctors write to him. His position is that antabus medication is a "chemical incarceration" intended to "help alcohol addicts around a dangerous corner," and that in so doing a doctor's advice is needed.

TIME has also received scores of letters from individuals, doctors, drug firms, medical journals, etc., asking for further information about antabus. All have been answered. A second story on Scandinavia's experience with the drug (TIME, Jan. 10) showed that there were dangerous aspects to antabus. A Helsinki housewife had loaded the canapes with it at her husband's stag party, which ended with everybody getting sick and some guests going to the hospital. As usual, TIME'S Medicine editor made no suggestions or recommendations about the use of antabus. He is gratified, nevertheless, at this impressive evidence of the readership his section has--right around the world.

* There are 7,800 Jacobsens in Denmark's capital.

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