INEBRIATE HOME.

Evening Star, Issue 3819, 21 May 1875, Page 3

INEBRIATE HOME.

Tn Uif h'.dit.or.

—I thank Dr Bake well for the line-quiyoe.-t 1 testimony given in bis letter of the Sih ii;st, t<* the nt cessi'y of total abstinence’ as a cure for intern; evince in its mo’e ag/ravat'/l form of dipsomai.D. Ido rot. howevet, think the doctor has fairlv no t my i roposition. I admit at once that a susreptibity to the influence of alcohol or that even a ta*to for alc>hol may be hereditary. This is one of the living testimonies to the truth, that the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children, and it is well that the drinkers in our midst should he reminded of this terrible fact. “Not one,” says Dr B. W. Richardson, E. H.S., in a recent lecture, “of the transmitted wrongs, physical or mental, is more certainly passed on to those yet unborn than the wrongs inflicted by alcohol.” Yet I would submit, even in opposition to so eminent an authority as Dr Bakewell, that “ a habit of excessive drinking ” is acquired, formed, and induced'by each individual whose habit it is. But even if I admit Dr Bakewell’s proposition, it only removes the origin of the evil deplored one step furthey hack, where it will be found to be srif-induced by a wilful indulgence in the use of alcohol. But he the cause of intemperance what it may, the question raised by Dr Bakewell, and which called forth my farmer letter, is, I think, this. Would it not be more philosophical, &c., to endea/or to discover and remove the causes of dipsomania than to erect houses for the treatment and cure of that vile disease ? That inquiry, I submit, remains unanswered by Dr Bakewell. No doubt dipsomania may be cured if the subject of it can be confined iu an inebriate asylum, but it is obvious that this agency oau never reach general intemperance. A man must be lar gone in intemperate habits before ho can he brought under the ameliorating influences the inebriate asylum is designed to ex-rcise, and these cannot possibly touch or affect the source nr course of the dreadful mania from which he suffers. Dipsomania is not intemperance in general or popular sense of the word, but is one of its dire results : one, I believe Dr Bakewell will admit, much more frequently developed than is generally supposed ; but there is much intemperance, as I believe the doctor will also admit, which is not dipsomania, and which a home for inebriates, ho never successful, would never touch. What society wants, then, is some method of getting at the root of this matter ; an agency or principle which will deal with the cause of dipsomania, and not only with dipsomania itself \ and it appears to me the to use a now favorite phrase, the evolving—of this principle or agency lies much in the way of the medical profession.—l am, &c., A Total Abstainer. Dunedin, May 13.