The occurrence of several types of acute muscular abnormalities in chronic alcoholism, first reported by Hed, Larson, and Wahlgren (1), now is well-known (2-6). Ekbom, Hed, Kirstein, and Astrom (3) and Serratrice, Toga, and Roux (4) have described the clinical and histologic features of a more chronic myopathy in patients with severe alcoholism. However, with the exception of extensive studies of a single patient reported by Douglas, Fewings, Casley-Smith, and West (6), information concerning the ultrastructural features of the skeletal muscle abnormalities associated with alcoholism is lacking.
In the preceding paper (7) we described the clinical and laboratory abnormalities found