REFORMING INEBRIATES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 231, 4 July 1872, Page 8

REFORMING INEBRIATES.

Bingharafcon, N.Y., is the State Asylum for the treatment of "Dipsomania." In acknowledging drunkenness as a disease it is becoming to^give it a genteel name. At the beginniug of the year 85 patients were under treatment. Of this number, 17 are committed by law, and 68 are either voluntary or sent by friends. They pay from sdols. to 20dols. per week. The treatment is partly moral and partly medical. There are 400 acres of land, and healthful diversion is promoted in various ways out doors, and by literary clubs, games, and treatment in doors. Solomon counselled the man in trouble and remembered his misery no more. But Dr. Dodge does not coincide, with Solomon. Total abstinence is a rigid rule, and experience confirms its necessity. There is a chaplain who give a brief discourse morning and evening, at which general attendance is required. All appearance of restriction is avoided ; so that the institution looks like a hotel.Bromide of Potassium seems to be the panacea ln that medical treatment ; and so marked is its effect, that patients who fall from grace- after leaving the institution, take it to help their recoveiy from debauch.

It is not easy to.tell when a patient may be called cured," But the record

shows about 60 per cent, cured ; the term of confinement being 6 months, as a rule. The institution supports itself.

Like fever and ague, dipsomania has its periodic attacks. Every d linking man gets inordinately rum-thirsty so many times a day, varying greatly in individuals. To reduce these periods of fever is the first aim. This is done by classifying the patients and keeping them so as to be within convenient reach at the^ critical periods ; and providing some off-take that diverts their minds till the yum fever is tided over ; so that a 6th drink man becomes entitled by and by to class as a 3rd drink, and finally, as safe for total abstinence, so long as the smell of the liquor and the old jolly-companionship be not together paraded temptingly before him. A high premium should be required to assure salvation under such ticklish tantalization. No pledge of temperance is exacted. The man's reason is appealed to exclusively. The training effects a greab deal. It frees him from the slavery of habit. He feels better for the emancipation, and he is put upon his manhood to resist new temptations, which he knows must lead to ruin of body and mind, os. w«ll as to social degradation. Upon tFie whole the institution is a successful reformatory. May heaven bless its good endeavours.

Dr. Dodge has gone to England by invitation of aComuiittee'of Parliament, to explain its process and to advocate its adoption in Great Britain.