The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-01-06
An Army Surgeons Life Work
WHAT He HAD ACCOMPLISHED WHEN
DEATH CAME.
An Interview With Physician of Another State
Who Talks Enthusiastically Of What He Knows
Of a Greensboro Institution.
Greensboro telegram

the North was in a death grapple with
its sister Southern States, an army sur
geon, attached to one of those Central
Western regiments which, more than any
of all the vast armies of the North came
near being equal, man to man, to the
Southern soldiers, sat upon his camp stool
in the open air worn out with the days
march. There was no time for tent
making, Forced marches, and the proX-
unity of the enemy made the tired men
only too glad to stretch their weary limbs
upon the friendly earth with no roof
above save that of Nature canopy. AS
the listless, done-for men moved about
the surgeon, with serious, thoughtful,
face, noted as he had so often before on
similar occasions, that here and there,
from different messes, two OF three men
were going off almost stealthlly with their
canteens The doctor knew too Well
that they, provided with abundant rations
and with plenty of water, were leaving
camp, tired and worn out, and ready to
drop as they were, to roam about the
neighboring woods in search of some
hillside distillery, that their craving for
alcohol might be satisfied. Father must
have been right" he murmured, surely
the passion of these weary men for drink
is no momentary or trifling desire but a
disease, a terrible, eXacting, disease. !
shall see."
And from that day the army surgeon
worked with one aim in view. He took
up the study of inebriety where his faith
er had left off. He worked for years
| unnoticed, quietly, thoroughly. He did
| not, like other men have done who had
an inkling of a great discovery, announce
it to the world before the first thread of
the tangled 'skein had been unraveled,
and thereby spoiled it all. But he did
his work completely, and So six months,
| ago when the army surgeon, sommoned by
the Reaper, babe farewell to the earth,
he left it as a benefactor leaves, with
| the consciousness that his hand had been
upon it for good, and that thousands nay,
hundreds of thousands of lives had been
transformed by the results of his labors,
and more, that those results were but
then beginning. There is little need to
call that mans name. 1t is already APP
parent to the reader. The names of men
who do great things do not need to be told
in connection with their accomplishment
What that accomplishment was can best
be told in the words of the famous IT,
Dewitt Talmage-words not high sound
ing. but eloquent in their simplicity:
In my church in Brooklyn there are
sitting before me Sabbath by Sabbath
men who We're once under the .serfdom
of strong drink, but are now clothed and
in their right minds. | have now in
mind young man who had broken his
fathers heart and his mothers heart
He was bolstered up, and he fell; every
thing tried with him possible. He became
converted man, joined the church; but
this awful disease drew him down and
down, and there seemed no cure. He is
redeemed today The Kelley cure saved
him, and nothing else under Heaven
would. Never let the time come in my
history when I cease to extol the grace
of God, but there are other men who need
something beside that Dr. Kelley strrc1
the keynote when he said This evil is
disease"
This train of thought was suggested by
the enthusiasm of physician of a neigh
boring State who was in Greensboro yes
terday. He had been a patient of the
Greensboro Kelley Institute several years
ago, and had come to bring a patient.
Since his own cure he has been possessed
Of such feeling of gratitude that his
lahors to get others to come have been
indefatigable.
Il was" said he, 1.-The most besotted of
men, health gone, practice going and
prospects blighted. Try as / would, the
accursed craving would get the better of
me, till the qualifications OF the thirst
seemed to be the sole object in life. /
found that was approaching the point
when l should be willing to sell practice,
family, honor and life itself for the salts
faction of that quenchless craving I had
heard, of course, of the Greensboro Kee-
ley Institute, and of DR.. Keeley's great
one at Dwight Illinois, but like many
other men who had not investigated |
thought that it was a cure dependent
largely upo nthe win power, and there
fore worthless to me. | had no will
power left. But finally after seeing one
who had been patient | became encour-
aged TO try, and so left my home for
Greensboro. That was the one act of my
life for which am every moment thank
full. If there was ever wrecked mortal
it was /. l was given the treatment
and since the day l left The Institute
have never touched or wanted to touch
another drop.
1T makes no difference why people be-
gin to drink, the result is inevitably the
same. If continued long enough the vic
tim becomes an inebriate, which ind-
Gates diseased condition of the nervous
system. DR.. Kelley defines it to be "a
condition wherein the nerve cells have
become so accustomed to performing their
duties and functions under the influence
of alcohol that they are dependent on it
and will no longer perform those duties
and functions properly and painIessly ex-
cept when under its influence" This
accounts for the craving for drink which
was never before understood When ev
cry nerve cell in his anatomy is crying
out for whskey, is it any wonder that the
victim yields? To bring about a cure,
therefore, it is necessary to overcome
this condition. The Kelley remedies are
absolutely specific for this disease.
noticed, too, that while the basic
treatment is, of course, the same for all
cases. even those for drunkenness, drug
addiuons, cigarettes and tobacco, or
nerve exhaustion. each patient in the
greensboro Institute. all of whom live in
the elegant old mansion now occupied by
Inc institute, and directly under the care
Oh the physician is treated according to
nus SPECIFIC case. The closest attention
IS gwen TO each, just as is done in a san
ltarlum The result on the general
health ic tbnrofo,,, NJ,