The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-07-11

ance societies are vast power, but more
effective as a preventive than curative
agency yet they may be credited, per-
haps, with the reformation Of about one
drunkard in ten. Prisons and insane
asylums, although in most places the only
remedies that the law empowers, can
hardly be considered anything more than
punitive. A cure or reformation in either
is rare occurrence, and not to be reason
ably expected. The moral objection to
associating the diseased or vicious with
criminals is obvious, and directors of in
sane asylums present grave sanitary rea-
sons for combining inebriates and insane
separately under different treatment. De-
spite the difficulties with which they have
commended, the inebriate homes of existing
modes of treatment present by far the
best record Of efficiency. They are gener-
ally private enterprises, receiving only pa
tients who come voluntarily, and having
no power of restraint or compulsion. Yet
according to DIR. Parrish their treatment
is successful in thirty-three per cent
of the cases coming under their care.
Though some consider that estimate
higher than facts warrant in this country
it is conceded to be true of the German
homes, which in some respects have the
advantage over ours. 1t is, at least, a
promise of what ours might do under
more favoring conditions. Do not these
facts call for a more general establishment
of inebriate asylums where, along with
restraint and ethical teaching, the patients
may have the careful medical treatment
which disease requires =? Or where such
establishments are impracticable, do they
not demand more general acceptance
and practice of the methods pursued
therein ? Let us recognize that, however
vicious the drunkard may have been at
the outset, may still be, he is also physic-
ally diseased, and not withhold the treat
ment which his suffering calls for
And that brings us to the second point.
How does this view of intemperance bear
on preventive agencies 1t is sometimes
claimed that its tendencies are dangerous.
There are earnest reformers who hold that
the adherence with which drunkenness
is regarded is seriously lessened by pro-
mitigating this view. But do we regard
lewdness with less repugnance because of
the frightful physical penalties that are
affixed to it ? Is one less likely to abstain
from gluttony because, aside from being
DsaStly indulgence, III Is the sure pre-
cursor of complicated disease ? We would
teach children that in exposing them
selves to the poison of alcohol they incur
physical as well as moral danger; and
physical risk often appeals to the thought
less more powerfully than moral. 1t is
more tangible and comprehensive. Es-
pecially where there is any hereditary
faint in the family, though ever SO far
back, would we have children familiarized
with the fact, and placed on guard against
any symptom of The disease. Let them
look upon it as the physical enemy against
which they have to watch; no more
moral disgrace than inherited pulmonary
weakness. Persons with a consumptive
tendency arrange their whole condition of
life, location, occupation and habits, fet-
ter themselves with thousand restric-
tions, that they may thereby win the
physical victory. So should the more
numerous class whose heritage is dead
lier enemy. They are not guilty for the
existence OF. that enemy. They are guilty,
if they make careless defense, or wage
cowardly warfare.-Advance.