Reprint of 1960 Edition. Jellinek was the founder of the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies and several other research centers. Jellinek coined the expression the disease concept of alcoholism and significantly accelerated the movement towards the medicalization of drunkenness and alcohol habituation. This book was considered the most careful and penetrating analysis of its theme up to its time of publication. In 1960 he left Yale to develop work on alcoholism for the World Health Organization and other research centers concerned with the study of alcoholism. The Disease Concept of Alcoholism is now considered a classic work in the field.