The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-09-25
FIGHTING DEADLY HABITS
First Step is oblteration Of the CraV'
ing for Stimulants.

ING for Stimulants.
In the October American Magazine
appears the story of Charles B.
Towns a physician who has done a
wonderful work in China and now in
America showing people how they
may fight the drug and alcohol hab-
its. Following is an extract:
Towns looked about him and saw
a world sodden with alcohol, dazed
with drugs and befuddled with tobac-
co. He saw the terrific pressure Of
commercial need and greed driving
these habits in upon us from every
quarter. He saw that many druggists
we're feeding the resulting abnormal
desires almost with impunity. He
saw physicians casually employing
alcohol where il was neither indicat-
ed nor needed, and leaving in their
wake a gloomy trail of morphinists-
many of these latter actually victims
of the hypodermic syringes left
in their hands by physicians. He
gathered information regarding con-
ditions in the so-called prohibition
states, and was himself astonished
by what he found: In Vermont for
example, the inquiries of DR.. Ashbel
r. Grinnell, Dean of the Vermont Med
ical College has led to the conclusion
that following the prohibition OF
liquor the drug habit had grown until
from druggists indicated a
of opium and its deriva-
tives amounting to one and one-half
grains per day for every man. woman
and child in the state. And this
apart from the alcoholic patent medi-
cines that crowded in to take the
place OF the franker stimulants.
He saw, al about him, men and
women going down under this
scourge. He saw nervous women, an
number of them, habitu-
ally taking trional. sulfonal. veronal,
and the other coal tar derivatives
and commonly under the impression
that no bad habit would result Many
were even so informed by physicians.
And he coined the phase-driving a
hard fist into the palm of the other
hand by way of emphasis
1 tell you, anything that acts like an
opiate is an opiate!'
He saw that nearly every one Of
the more than six thousand cases
that had passed under his own obser-
walton had a history of excessive to-
bacco smoking. He saw man after
man, discharged from his hospital
and free from desire for this fatal
resume tobacco smoking
and thus lay the foundations for a re-
apse. And he launched the phrase
is always a bad thing, and
tobacco is just as injurious
as moderate opium smokingI
"Hessaw thousands of misguided
men and women, particularly among
he lower classes. take TO cocain to
soothe their nerves and stimulate
heir jaded faculties. He studied
these cases for years. lie arrived at
4 conclusion, summed up in the
provides the shortest
tut to the insane asylum. II takes
hem there across lots!'
He saw sentimentalists and eX-
rene religionists trying to reform
he fallen by appeals to a confused
md warped moral sense. He studied
hese cases. He arrived at the con-
,lusion that it is unfair and useless
o appeal to a diseased mind He
ave up wasting words on them.
The time to talk he said. is after
he medical treatment is finished |
What's the use? They aren't them |
elves. Their minds are muddled and !
visited. Got to get that twist out |
rst.'
"A great many of his cases came to ]
lin after a history of years in sana-
DRUMS and institutions Many had |
pent long terms of years and tens of |
thousands Of dollars in the pitiful |
truggle. In practically every case it /
fas a story oreattempted substitution
{ stimulants or gradual reduction of
he dose. And in practically every /
ase it had been so much a week. |
nth extras
Towns saw into all this-saw all
round it and behind il, and arrived
{ several conclusions. One was
nat withdrawal and reduction are
ever cures. Such treatment may
ven be dangerous. particularly in
he case of a confirmed alcoholic or
lorphinist The first step must be
medical obliteration OF the crav-
lg."