Besides these, there are private institutions, in which dypsomaniac patients are received.  The methods of treatment differ according to the views and experience of those having charge of these institutions.  Up to this time a great deal of the treatment has been experimental; and there is still much difference of opinion among physicians and superintendents in regard to the best means of cure.  But, on two important points, all are nearly in agreement.  The first is in the necessity for an immediate and

ABSOLUTE WITHDRAWAL OF ALL INTOXICANTS FROM THE PATIENT,

no matter how long he may have used them; and the second in the necessity of his entire abstinence therefrom after leaving the institution. The cure never places a man back where he was before he became subject to the disease; and he can never, after his recovery, taste even the milder forms of alcoholic beverage without being exposed to the most imminent danger of relapse.

The great value of an asylum where the victim of intemperance can be placed for a time beyond the reach of alcohol is thus stated by Dr. Carpenter:  “Vain is it to recall the motives for a better course of conduct, to one who is already familiar with them all, but is destitute of the will to act upon them; the seclusion of such persons from the reach of alcoholic liquors, for a sufficient length of time to free the blood from its contamination, to restore the healthful nutrition of the brain and to enable the recovered mental vigor to be wisely directed, seems to afford the only prospect of reformation: and this cannot be expected to be permanent, unless the patient determinately adopts and steadily acts on the resolution to abstain from that which, if again indulged in, will be poison, alike to his body and to his mind.”

In the study of inebriety and the causes leading thereto, much important information has been gathered by the superintendents and physicians connected with these establishments.  Dr. D.G.  Dodge, late Superintendent of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, read a paper before the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, in 1876, on “Inebriate Asylums and their Management,” in which are given the results of many years of study, observation and experience.  Speaking of the causes leading to drunkenness, he says: 

“Occupation has a powerful controlling influence in developing or warding off the disease.  In-door life in all kinds of business, is a predisposing cause, from the fact that nearly the whole force of the stimulant is concentrated and expended upon the brain and nervous system.  A proper amount of out-door exercise, or labor, tends to throw off the stimulus more rapidly through the various functional operations of the system.  Occupation of all kinds, mental or muscular, assist the nervous system to retard or resist the action of stimulants—­other conditions being equal.  Want of employment, or voluntary idleness is the great nursery of this disease.”