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Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access originally published online on January 23, 2009
Alcohol and Alcoholism 2009 44(2):106-107; doi:10.1093/alcalc/agn119
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Medical Council on Alcohol. All rights reserved

Introduction to This Issue: The Seven Ages of Man ... (or Woman)

E. Jane Marshall1,*, Irene Guerrini2,3 and Allan D. Thomson1,3

1 National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK
2 Bexley Substance Misuse Service, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, London, UK
3 Molecular Psychiatry Laboratory, Research Department of Mental Health Sciences, Windeyer Institute of Medical Sciences, University College London Medical School, 46 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JF, UK

* Corresponding author: National Addiction Centre, Box 048, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK, Tel: +00-44-203-228-2345; Fax: +00-22-203-228-2349; E-mail: jane.marshall@iop.kcl.ac.uk

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The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The famous monologue from Shakespeare's As You Like It, from which the title of this contribution is taken, likens the world to a stage and life to a play. The seven stages of man's life are vividly evoked and have resonance today, even as we view the effects of alcohol consumption on the individual across the life course. First we see the infant ‘mewling and puking in his nurse's arms’, then the child ‘creeping like snail unwillingly to school’. The lover (or modern day adolescent) ‘sighing like a furnace’ gives way to the soldier (or young adult) ‘sudden and quick in quarrel’. The ‘justice’ (modern day adult) is ‘full of wise saws and modern instances’ and ‘so plays his part’. With the arrival of the sixth age, we see the older man shrinking in stature. Finally the dying man is again like a child: ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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