LITERARY NOTICES. 



Successful Management of Inebriety Without Secrecy in Therapeutics. 1 



By permission of the author we quote almost in full, a paper by 

 C. H. Hughes, M. D., St. Louis. 



Dr. Benjamin Rush, in his "Diseases of the Mind," published in 

 1812, recommends "The establishment of a hospital in every city and 

 town in the United States for the exclusive reception of hard drink- 

 ers" and says "they are as much objects of public humanity and 

 charity as mad people; and religious, moral and physical remedies 

 . . . should be employed ... for the complete and radi- 

 cal cure of their disease." 



Since the immortal Rush rested from his labors, vast progress has 

 been made and vaster still is making in the management of the drink 

 habit and in the treatment of the drink disease. Facts which but a 

 few years ago advanced observers, like Morel, Magnan and the few 

 neurologists of their time, first took note of, touching the hereditary 

 transmission of neuropathic instability and dipsomaniacal tendencies 

 through ancestral alcoholic excesses and vice versa, have not only 

 passed into the possession of the profession generally as practical 

 knowledge, but have become largely the mental possessions of the 

 people. The profession, the people, and even the unfortunate vic- 

 tim of the drink habit himself, have come to the understanding that 

 habitual resistless inebriety is a disease and chiefly of the brain and 

 nerves, and under this impression, resulting from medical research 

 and teaching, the drunkard and the dipsomaniac now seek and the 

 profession now give, medical relief to the sufferer, or the friends of the 

 inebriate procure this relief for him. 



The general professional consent and popular recognition of the 

 fact that inebriety is a disease, are the results of the impressive and 

 persistent efforts of the British and American Associations and other 

 medical societies having in view the cure of inebriety. 



x Read before the Section on Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System, 

 Pan-American Medical Congress, at Washington, D. C, September 7th, 1893. 

 Reprinted from The Alienist and Neurologist, Jan., 1894. 



