“Much, of course, depends upon the superintendent, who needs to possess those genial qualities which readily win the confidence and good-will of patients, and which he readily turns to account, by encouraging them to use the means which the Creator has given them to co-operate in curing themselves.  The means of cure are in the patient’s own hands, and it is quite a gift to be able to make him see it.”

THE WASHINGTONIAN HOME AT CHICAGO

is on the same plan, in all essential respects, with that of Boston; and the reports show about the same average of cures and beneficial results.  How the patient is treated in this Home may be inferred from the following extract from an article on “The Cause, Effect and Cure of Inebriety,” from the pen of Prof.  D. Wilkins, the superintendent, which appeared in a late number of The Quarterly Journal of Inebriety.  In answer to the question, How can we best save the poor drunkard, and restore him to his manhood, his family and society, he says: 

“Money, friends, relatives and all have forsaken him, his hope blasted, his ambition gone, and he feels that no one has confidence in him, no one cares for him.  In this condition he wends his way to an institution of reform, a penniless, homeless, degraded, lost and hopeless drunkard.  Here is our subject, how shall we save him?  He has come from the squalid dens, and lanes of filth, of misery, of want, of debauchery and death; no home, no sympathy and no kind words have greeted him, perhaps, for years.  He is taken to the hospital.  A few days pass, and he awakes from the stupidity of drink, and as he opens his eyes, what a change!  He looks around, kind and gentle voices welcome him, his bed is clean and soft, the room beautiful, tasteful and pleasant in its arrangements, the superintendent, the physician, the steward and the inmates meet him with a smile and treat him as a brother.  He is silent, lost in meditation.  Thoughts of other days, of other years, pass through his mind in quick succession as the tears steal gently down his cheeks.  He talks thus to himself:  ’I am mistaken. Somebody does care for the drunkard.  And if somebody cares for me, I ought to care for myself.’  Here reform first commences.  In a few days, when free, to some extent, from alcohol, he is admitted to the freedom of the institution.  As he enters the reading-room, the library, the amusement, the gymnasium, dining-room and spacious halls, the conviction becomes stronger and stronger that somebody is interested in the inebriate, and he should be interested in himself.  Then comes the lessons of the superintendent.  He is taught that he cannot be reformed, but that he can reform himself.  That God helps those only who help themselves.  That he must ignore all boon companions of the cup as associates, all places where liquor is kept and sold, that, in order to reform himself, he must become a reformer, labor for the good of his brother; in short, he must shun every rivulet that leads him into the stream of intemperance, and as a cap-stone which completes the arch, that he must look to Him from whence cometh all grace and power to help in time of need.