Remarks on the utility and necessity of asylums or retreats for the victims of intemperance.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the utility and necessity of asylums or retreats for the victims of intemperance. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    latter, that might not have been very plausibly urged against any effort to relieve the former, while some circumstances are eminently favourable to the effort for inebriates which are not found in the case of the insane. We will only specify one, viz : that the provocatives to insanity are much more numerous, va- rious, subtle and uncontrollable, than those to inebriation—the latter being much less connected with intellectual or spiritual derangement than the former. Dr. Woodward's advantages for ascertaining the results of confinement and entire abstinence from intoxicating drink for a long period have been rare and unusual, having been connected for twelve successive years with two institutions, in which nu- merous individuals, amounting to many hundreds, were confined, who by intemperance had become insane, or who had perpe- trated crimes which rendered confinement necessary. The result of this experience is the fullest conviction, that a large proportion of the intemperate in a well-conducted institution would be radically cured, and would again go into society with health re-established, diseased appetites removed, with principles of intemperance well grounded and thoroughly understood, so that they would be afterwards safe and sober men. It is important to a right understanding of this subject that we have correct views of the nature of intemperance. Intemperance, when established as a habit, is a physical evil, depending on certain diseases or modifications of the functions of the system important to life, and not under the control of the will. Here a mistake is commonly committed by those who oppose, as well as those who use intoxicating liquors. Habitual drinkers do not know their own condition, and have never tried the principle for which they contend, by a fair ex- periment. Intemperance cannot be said to be confirmed till a morbid condition of the stomach is produced. This diseased state of the stomach is known by a sense of vacuity, faintness, and de- pression, which calls imperiously for a repetition of the stimulant upon which it depends. It must be perfectly apparent that alcohol is improper in a healthy state. The first organ to suffer from its use is the stomach, the common centre of the system, and the medium