The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-05-10
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
REMOVE TEMPTATION.
Notes on the Rational Treatment OF Re-
| formed Drunkards.


dency to excite inebriety. Alcohol Is
SO powerful an excitant that very
small dose of fermented wine, or beer,
or spirit, administered incidentally, ana
the mere sip of fermented wine at the
sacrament, have been known to excite
to paroxysm of inebriety. Christian
churches using intoxicant wine tine
sacredness of the occasion making no
difference in the Intoxicating proper
ties of the symboD would do well TO
bear in mind that they can not use an
intoxicating material for sacramental
purposes without some risk of exciting
some communicates to an outbreak OF
drunkenness.
From all these, as we'll as from many
other particulars about inebriety,
culled during a somewhat prolonged ex-
perience OF such cases, it will be APP
parent that inebriety is true disease
demanding recognition and appropriate
treatment. Except in medical circles,
l am unable to discuss the thera-
peutics of this disease, but l am at
liberty to lay down the general lines OF
sound treatment.
First, and most essential, there should
be an entire discontinuance of all in
toxicants, immediate in the case OF al
cohol and gradual with opium. The
abstinence should be absolute, with no
exception on the score of physic, unlels,
in an emergency involving life when no
other suitable medicine is available;
and no exception at all on any ecclesias-
teal or other plea. In persistent absti-
hence alone is their safety.
The physical damage wrought by the
poison on the system should be re-
paired, and the original factors in the
origination of the disease should, if
possible, be unraveled in order that the
pre-inebriate unhealthful condition con-
ducing to inebriety may be rectitied.
The resisting power and the will should
be strengthened by the building up
anew of healthy brain and nerve tissue,
by suitable occupation, by intellectual
and elevating pursuits, and the moral
tone cultivated and raised by the emo
bling influences of moral and religious
considerations.
In many cases there is will-power
enough left to secure the quondam
drunkards steadfastness in absti-
nence, and with such the benefcent
work of teetotal societies, especially
when supported by the invigorating
aid of the highest religious motives, has
achieved a vast amount of success.
The abstinence movement is founded on
i,Nlo hn
teachings of physiological science, as it
is the highest expression of the Divine
law relative to the purity and the eff
cheney of the temple of the body.
But there are inebriates without num-
Der whose brain and higher nerve-cen-
tiers have been so seriously damaged
that their will has become as paralyzed
as their moral sense has become dead
ened;who are of the most pronounced type
of naecomaniacs. For these, as for not
few of the former class, who yet are
so DESTROYS to be saved from themselves
that they are willing to surrender their
liberty for time in the hope of cure, a
prolonged sojourn, under scientific treat
ment, in q genuine home for the cure OF
this disease is the only human hope of
deliverance. The law has done some
little, but we still lack National pro-
vision for the therapeutic treatment
of poor inebriates as we now provide for
poor lunatics; we still urgently stand
in need of legislation for the involun-
tary detention and care of all such
naroomaniacs, be they rich or be they
poor, who are so under the inebriate
domination that they have neither reso-
luton nor power to strike blow for
freedom.
Our present legislative treatment OF
these diseased ones is wasteful, dis
graceful and unjust. We have a
huge government training school
of inebriety inasmuch as we i'm
prison the drunkard after he has
become drunk and can drink no
more for the nonce, keep him in seclu-
sion from intoxicants just long enough
to recover from the effects of debauch,
and then we send him forth again into
the world once more fitted to indulge to
excess. We refit him in a teetotal club
house, the only victims on whom pun
ldllo DCLhF5 bllO -dllliCGcu
wife and children, whose sustenance
has been taken from them by our i'm
prisonment of their bread-winner.
All this calls aloud for reformation.
Once let the community comprehend
the relations of the disease of inebriety
to the Temperance movement, once let
the friends of abstinence realize the
physical as we'll as the moral and re-
ligious aspects of intemperance, the
great cause will then take giant stride
forwards; reformation and not penal
procedure, kindness and not vengeance,
will breathe through all our legalized
dealing with the sick inebriate; the
Christian church will clear herself OF
all completely with the temptation OF
the rescued from strong drink to re-
lapse and ruin, by banishing all intoxi-
eating wines from her sacred precincts;
the State, recognizing that prevention
is better than cure, and that the first
duty of good government is to preserve
order, health, intelligence and life. will
either prohibit the common sale of all
such beverages as promote disease,
crime and premature death, or invest
the people with the power of roofing out
so deadly center of common danger,
a common menace, a common and q
shameful reproach to our country and