Breast cancer: a case for conservation.

SIR,-Your leading article "Alcoholism: time for action" (11 April, p 1177) deserves, and will no doubt receive, wide support from the profession. But if we are to seek to influence national policy, we must ourselves first set an example, as we have done in the past in the case of cigarette smoking. I would not myself advocate a call for total abstinence, but could we not place some voluntary limit to the amount of drink consumed at medical dinners and other functions, and couple with this an undertaking not to drink and drive ? We look to the royal colleges to show us the way, as they have done in the past with the smoking problem. Our responsibility to practise what we preach is very great.