Soundings: Too many to count

TL;DRAbstract

In the days when the pub across the road was a legitimate extension of the hospital wards and on-call rooms, a bottle of beer strangely found its way to the sister's office. A nurse carrying a patient's dinner tray reawakened the hitherto dormant spirit of scientific inquiry. The fish was swabbed and the swab was sent for culture to the laboratory, accompanied by a test tube of beer labelled “urine.” The beer came back “yeast cells, too many too count.” The fish grew E coli. I was reminded of this seminal contribution to science by a report that “too many drinks to count” has become a problem on college campuses, where many students “major in bingeing.” “Everybody does it, students claim,” the article goes on, presenting statistics and Venn diagrams showing that 73% of university undergraduates had used alcohol in the past 30 days and 22.8% had gone on binge drinking sprees three times or more in the past two weeks. The article also describes how a girl with 11 beers on board and he

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