A HOME FOR INEBRIATES.

Evening Star, Issue 3810, 11 May 1875, Page 3

A HOME FOR INEBRIATES.

To the Editor. \ Sib,—Your correspondent, “ A Total Abstainer,” in his letter in this evening’s' Stab, whether I should, not be acting “more philosophically, and more in accordance, with the principle® and the practice of the hoble profession to which I belong, if I endeavored-to discover and remove the causes of dipsomanial instead of proposing to buildf a house in which dipsomaniacs may be gathered, with a view to the cure and removal of that which, according to. the Superintendent of the Crighton Royal Institute, is a self-induced disease ?” Firstly I cannot agree with . the authority (juoted, as a habit of excessive drinkmg is certainly, in many cases, hereditary. Secondly, I think that a properly conducted home in which inebriates could be detained until their nervous systems and drawstive organs had recovered a healthy condition, and the habit of total abstinence had become thoroughly rooted in them would effect “ the cure and removal” of the disease. 1 have no’ faith many cure except total abstinence. I fcivariably urge upon my patients in the strongest terms to take nothing if they find feat one glass tempts them to a second, and the second to a third. But the habit of drinking to excess once acquired produces that diseased craving for stimulants which cannot be resisted if the patient can by any means procure drink. There is no more earnest advocate of Good Templarism, outside its ranks, than I am. But I fail to see why I, who never got drunk in my life, ain to become a total abstainer because other people cannot take stimulants in moderatio/■. I drink a glass of wine lor the same reason that I eat roast partridge, or truffles, or plum pud; hug, « r apple pie—because I like them, and can them without going to excess. I can do without wine, and so I can without coffee or t.a, I don’t think any of them do mo much good, or any harm, and as they are more agreeable than the nastiness the City Council give us under the name of water, 1 drink them in preference ti that disgusting m, •?? t he W' if the total abstainers will agitate for an improved water supply, they will be doing ft really good work and powerfully aiding their oause. If any man or woman has not the strength of mind to take alcoholic stimulants in the striotes't moderation, «r even if he or she feel them a 'temptation, let them abstain altogether. Far better never to touch a drop, than even to risk the loss of bodily and mental health by excess But generally I find that total abstainers are men of strong will and great conscientiousness, ana just the men who never would drink to excess if they drank at all. It is the “weak brethren ” that we want to benefit,—l am, &c, „ „ ~ H, Bakbwml, M.D.* Dunedin, May 8.