The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-11
SAVED FROM SURE DEATH.
Delirium Tremens Said To Be a Sin, and Not
aDisease, Which the Sinner Gives Up.

Delirium Tremens Said To Be Sin, and Not
Disease, Which the Sinner Gives Up.
New York World.
People shuddered as they looked. From the
ledge of third story window at Third avenue,
near Sixty ninth street, the body of a man was
seen dangling. In a moment it fell. Women
shrieked, and men rushed forward to gather up
the mutilated form. The stranger struck an
| awning beneath, rebounded slightly and rolled
off into the gutter He regained his feet in a
! moment, and, apparently unframed, started up
the street on a run. A moment later a young
girl rushed from the doorway of the house, cali
ing to the escaping man:
Brother, brother, don't go, don't gol Oh,
what shall dol"
She was just on the point of bursting into
tears when policeman intercepted the fee
ing brother, who was brought back to the
house.
He went on spree on election day." ex-
planned the sister. "He hadn't been drunk
for almost year, and it nearly broke mothers
heart When he came home we locked him
in his room and he climbed out of the window 5"
you better let me lock him up" said the SYM
pathetic officer, as he led the young man away
He was taken to the Christian Home for Intern
perate Men, at Madison avenue and Eighty sixth
street. where he was received by Superintendent
Charles A. Bunting
"Our system of treatment is different from
that of any institution in the country" said Mr.
Bunting, yesterday, to World reporter. I'VE
give no liquors. no morphine, no choral, relying
only on the faith we have in the power of G cd to
remove the appetite 1t is strictly religious
work. We treat drunkenness as a SIM not as q
disease. In the case you mention the patient
was first taken to the hospital, where he was
treated as a human being Two nurses sat up
with him and stroked his hands and talked ra-
Jionaly to him and made him think he was in
the home of the Good Samaritan. He was on
the verge of delirum tremens and we sent for a
homeopathic physician, who gave him a little
bromide to quiet him, but we have no system
here of tapering off a spree and do not admins
ter any medicine"
''How do you treat genuine cases of delirium
tremensl"
I'm the seven years and half that | have
been here have not known dozen cases.
believe delirium is caused by the methods used
in many institutions. l told friend of mine
the other day that he could pick out the worst
case of drunkenness he could find at the Tombs
and send the victim to me; then he was to send
a mider case to a certain institution, and told
him that in one week | would show him strong
! manly fellow, completely recovered, while the
institution mention could show him only Il
raving maniac. They put q man in strait
jacket and strap him down. They stand over
him and threaten him if he moves, and in an
hour he is wild When a man is recovering
from spree he is in a state of fright and needs
to be soothed. He thinks he will surely die and
should be told differently instead of being strap
ped as though about to be led to his execution
| drank from the time | was nineteen years of
age until was forty eight, and | know what
they suffer"
Mr. Bunting showed the reporter through the