The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-04
TO CHECK INEBRIETY.

DR.. w. J. Gavigan's assertion that
"dipsomania and confirmed inebriety
whether inherited or acquired, are ply
steal disorders, and as such require physical
rather than moral means alone for their
relief" will probably not pass unchal-
lenged by those great moral agencies
which aim at a cure of kind other than
or in addition to physical restraint DR..
Gavigan has earned the deepest gratitude
of the community for having conceived
and carried to a successful issue the Legis-
| lative enactment providing home for in
ebriates under the control of the Board oil
Health, for the scandals which have risen
out of the private treatment of such cases
in the past were most deplorable, and the
new scheme, which he has done so much
to promote, is an Unreasonable advance
upon the old.
1t will be cheerfully granted, too, that
physical restraint may always be useful
but any insistence that physical rather
than moral means must be depended
upon assails the very foundation of right
conduct as based on the exercise of will
that has been educated by moral forces.
A discussion of this phase of treating
drunkenness has been rendered all the
more timely by the ruling of an Eastern
Judge that DIR. Kelley, the inventor of the
"Keeley cure" must disclose the formula
of his "bichloride of gold"-a product
which the ordinary chemist must hold his
breath even to hear mentioned. The con-
stitution of the "Keeley cure" compound
is pretty well understood in medical cir
Giles and the belief there is that certain
drastic nervines, including strychnine,
veratrim and some others, are employed,
which produce so radical Encouragement
of the nerve cells as temporarily to dis
organize to a certain extent any nerve
habit to which the system may have been
addicted. At the same time, however, the
value of the imagination in prolonging the
abstention-the operation, in other words,
of "moral force''-has been regarded as
the most valuable of the "gold cures" con-
stituents.
Aside from this, one of the Oldest and &C.
cepted beliefs is that drunkenness is a
neurosis, and that all neuroses are amen
able to a greater or less degree TO
what we term "moral agencies" Thus,
wonderful cures of certain kinds have
undoubtedly been affected by many
agencies which approach and affect the
nervous system in manner analogous to
that by which nerve habits acquire con-
troll. This is the scientific explanation Of
faith cures, and also of the hypnotic in
huence, whose efficacy within certain limi-
tations is undeniable. Experts in the
treatment of the manifold forms of
hysteria are aware of its force. In addi-
ton to all this is the generally accepted
belief that a strong religious faith acts as a
powerful deterrent against an inclination
to indulge in the grosser vices.
The only point that we desire to make in
this matter is that the new institution for
the treatment of inebriates should not
ignore the efficacy of moral influences in
the treatment of drunkenness. Simple
physical restraint from access to alcohol
almost inevitably means return to alcohol
when the restraint is removed. The i'm
planting of moral force which shall not
persist beyond the exercise of the physical
restraint offers to the wise and humane
physician the highest opportunity for the
application of the broadest scientific
KNOWLEDGE